Falling Short
by Kaguya 2.0
Summary: Blues spends his early life knowing nothing about the world or why he is here. But in time, he begins to realize his creators are keeping secrets from him... and that he doesn't know who he can trust. Buckle up, it's going to be a wild ride. Classic series AU, set in a realistic near-future Japan. Rated T for mild language and Dr. Wily's off-color humor.
1. Part One: Birthday Suit

_"Our responsibility begins with the power to imagine."_ \- Haruki Murakami

* * *

His earliest memories were only abstractions: shapes without form, movements without direction, black colors. Later there were sensations, pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral, all independent of expectation or fear. Then there were the blurred outlines of human faces, without significance or context. Then voices speaking in muffled, unintelligible tones.

Then something was born into his world. It was as if he'd split into two, except that he had no knowledge of the other part. His first act of will was an attempt to understand it, and his first emotion was disappointment that he couldn't.

In retrospect, he was now able to put some of the features of those memories to words, and so he relived them more vividly than he'd lived them, just as a human dreamer attaches meaning and color to his dream only after he's awake.

Slowly, the world took shape. Many of the steps toward his current self defied explanation. He didn't understand them, though he now knew what their results were. He had no control over the process, but he wasn't afraid.

Colors appeared: sky blue, green, brown, dazzling yellow; then, much later, they collected themselves into shapes. Sounds grew clearer and came at him from different directions.

He found himself in a forest. Of course, he didn't know then that it was called a "forest," or that such a place was known for being beautiful. He had no idea how long he'd been there, but he couldn't imagine a time before it. Why, then, did everything appear so new and strange?

Above him was a canopy of trees through which he saw shards of light. In front of him, an expanse of green and brown stretched into the distance. The leaves undulated in constant rhythms as though they had a mind of their own. He heard the sound of the wind, powerful and sweeping, which both comforted and unsettled him.

He trudged across the soft damp earth toward an opening in the trees. _Tree?_—how did he know such a thing had a name like that? He couldn't remember learning the word. He turned around, looked once more behind him, and the word "forest" came to mind. "Sun," "sky," and "grass" followed. And as these thoughts flitted through him, he realized that this was the first time he'd been aware of his own thinking.

He stopped just before he reached the clearing. What was happening to him? His world hadn't always been like this. He'd been here before, but until now he'd had no comprehension of what was around him. He'd watched the leaves and listened to the wind, but he hadn't _really_ seen or heard anything. He knew there had been a time when nothing had been separate from him, and the world and himself had been a bright indistinguishable blur. Now, everything had a name and its own proper place. The more names he realized he knew, the more bewildered he was by the widening separation of himself from everything around him.

With the awareness of that separation came his first experience of fear.

The span of time from his first conscious sensation to now seemed like minutes. Actually, he later learned, it was decades.

He heard music. It was the beginning of Brahms's 4th symphony, though he didn't yet know its name, or that Dr. Wily had chosen it just for this occasion. For years afterward, hearing the first few bars would still strike him with awe and terror.

A voice spoke, a familiar voice, but now he understood the words. And he knew it was addressed to him.

"You've been sleeping," it said. "Time to wake up."

Later, he'd compare the feeling to being pulled out of water. He felt as though he was being lifted, and then the world hit him like a thunderclap. A cacophony of noise and light pierced him. He was cold, and he shivered violently. He shut his eyes, wanting to escape, to sink back down to where he'd come from. It was terrible, terrible…

"Oh, God. Quick, Albert, bring an electric blanket," said the voice. "Turn on the kerosene heater, too, while you're at it. It's freezing in here. We should have thought of that."

"That's not the only thing we should have thought about, you know," said the voice of Albert. A pair of footsteps shuffled away, then shuffled back.

He heard a faint humming sound to his left, and an acrid smell filled his nose. Something soft and warm was thrown over him. He opened his eyes. This time, he clearly saw a light shining down into his face. He squinted to avoid it until a hand reached across his field of vision and turned it off.

"Sorry about that too," said the first voice. "We're getting off to a bad start, I'm afraid."

The darkened outlines of two men's faces peered down at him. As his brand new optical nerves adjusted to the light, their features came into focus. The face on the left was round, framed by a thick graying beard with a few remaining streaks of black. It had a squat nose and warm, dark brown eyes. The face on the right was gaunt and blue-eyed, with a moustache and a protruding cleft chin, and crowned by a scalp that was bald except for few tufts of grayish hair sticking out on either side.

"Sorry, indeed," said the owner of the bald head, Albert. "Most people, the first thing they ever set eyes on is a young woman. Usually there's even a titty or two right after that. But _you_, on the other hand... you have only our ugly mugs to look at."

He stared up at the two faces, blinking. He didn't understand anything Albert had said.

"Let's do a quick scan to make sure his systems are working as they should," said the first voice. He saw two pairs of hands going down below his field of vision. The blanket was adjusted, and the cloth covering his top half parted and pulled back. The faces disappeared, and he heard a soft clicking which he later placed as the sound of rapid typing into a netscreen.

The faces returned, but their eyes were focused on something off to the left.

"Seems good so far," said Albert, who looked down at him with a toothy grin. "Thank God. There's nothing wrong with you—yet."

He felt the odd sensation of something closing up in his chest. The cloth was wrapped around him once more, and the blanket was draped back on top.

"This is probably a little unpleasant for you," said the first voice. "That's normal. You're perfectly safe. Are you frightened? Shake your head if no."

He shook his head, and was surprised by the feeling. Somehow he'd known what to do, though this was his first ever time to do it.

Then, a quick flash of light, followed by a loud _click_, startled him.

"Aren't you going to ask him to say 'cheese'?" said Albert.

The other man chuckled. "Now, I think some introductions are in order," he said. "We're your creators—well, two of them, anyway. My name is Tom, and he's Albert; but I suppose it would be appropriate for you to call us by our titles: Dr. Light and Dr. Wily."

"A modicum of respect is all we ask," said Albert, also known as Dr. Wily, "considering all the time and effort it took us to make you. Not to mention money—well, actually, most of _that_ was other people's." He winked. "A lot of it," he added at a whisper, as if making a confession.

"Up until now, you've been in a kind of… dream state," said Tom, also known as Dr. Light. "While you were there, we were engineering and refining your sensory input systems, forming your neural pathways, building your human-like body, and programming your CPU. Now you're finished, so we've activated you—brought you out into the real world, so you can start moving around, taking in data, manipulating the environment, acquiring socialization…"

Dr. Light paused, and the two sides of his mouth turned slightly upwards. "Sorry again. That means absolutely nothing to you, does it?"

He realized he wanted to say something. The words formed in his mind, and his mouth opened as if automatically. However, the sounds that came out were nothing but a slurred jumble of nonsense.

"You want to speak," said Dr. Light, "but you haven't yet learned how to form the words. Moving your mouth will take a little practice, just like moving your body. But don't worry: you're a fast learner. And I'm sure you have a lot to say." He pulled back the blanket. "Here, let's try something," he said. He reached down and touched his hand. "Can you feel that? Nod your head if yes."

He nodded. The man's hand on his own was warm. Not only that, but it felt _good._

Tom lifted the hand and pulled it out from under the blanket. The rest of the arm followed. "Move your fingers," he said.

As if Dr Light himself had willed it to happen, the fingers moved.

"We'll take this one step at a time.," he said. "Soon you'll be up off this table and exploring. Wouldn't you like that?"

He nodded again, feeling a surge of excitement. _Yes, I would like that very much._

With some gentle coaxing from Dr. Light and Dr. Wily, he then moved each of the fingers on his right hand, bent his wrists and elbows, and wiggled his toes.

They removed the blanket, but he was no longer cold. He turned his eyes to the left, toward the gentle hum of the kerosene heater, and realized he was in a large room with a grey floor and white walls. The surface he was lying on was hard and silver. The circular lamp, now turned off, was hanging above his head. From a corner, up near the ceiling, a little red light blinked down at him.

For now, cameras of all kinds had no significance to him. In time, however, he would grow to hate them.

"We're going to move you into a sitting position now," said Dr. Light. "This may feel strange."

Two pairs of hands grasped him by the arms and pulled him upward. It hadn't occurred to him that he would need to lift his head on his own, and it lolled ridiculously behind him.

"Come on, you lazy git," said Dr. Wily with a snort. "Don't make us do all the work."

A hand—probably Dr. Wily's—grabbed him by the hair and steadied him until his sense of balance took over. Then, someone pulled on his legs so that they dangled from the edge of the table. As Dr. Light had predicted, this did feel strange. His entire perspective had shifted—his creators were standing in front of him, and for the first time he could see that they had bodies as well as faces and hands. Both of them were wearing white lab coats.

He looked down at his own body. He saw both his hands and, far away, his legs and feet. The rest was wrapped in a soft, bulky, dark blue cloth—a bathrobe—that was tied at the waist.

Dr. Wily glanced up at him with an apologetic look. "It's _his_," he said, with a point toward his companion, "in case you're wondering about the size discrepancy. But you have to admit," he added, "it's better than the birthday suits we got."

"Albert, hold on to him for a moment," said Dr. Light, who let go of his grip and reached for his camera. "Another photo for posterity." There was a another familiar flash of light, followed by a click. He blinked. Those sudden bursts of light were unpleasant, and he wished they would stop—but of course, at the time, he couldn't do anything to protest.

"All right, young man," said Dr. Wily, "you're heavy, and I'd appreciate it if you'd get off of me." He jabbed him in the arm. "So, you're going to learn to walk now. How about it?"

He nodded. _Yes, I'd like to learn to walk._

The two men put their arms around his shoulders, lifted him by the knees, and lowered him to the floor. His bare feet met against cool, hard concrete.

He'd been programmed with a finely tuned sense of balance, and it didn't take long. After a few minutes, he could stand on his own. After a few more, Dr. Light stood at his side as he took his first step.

"Albert, do you mind?" he said, with a nod toward the camera.

"Again?" said Dr. Wily.

There was another flash of light and a click, and again he blinked and turned away.

Right foot, left foot, right, left. Leaning against Dr. Light, he took a few more stumbling steps forward. Each one was a little easier than the last. Before long, he was able to walk without support—slowly, stiffly, fawn-like. His creators watched him from a short distance with looks of approval.

"Now, come this way. We have a treat for you." Dr. Wily grabbed him by the hand and guided him toward the wall, where a full-length mirror was mounted.

He stopped in his tracks, staring at the image in the mirror. He saw a shock of navy blue—the oversized bathrobe he wore—and above it his own face, smooth and clear, complemented by two big, dark eyes and a head full of thick black hair. _This is me._ He lurched forward on his unsteady feet to get a closer look.

"You're thinking: 'oh, what a relief,' aren't you?" Dr. Wily said. "You're a damn sight better looking than we are. We had enough sense, at least, to make sure of that."

He began to wobble where he stood, so Dr. Wily maneuvered him into a sitting position in front of the mirror. He couldn't stop staring. He touched his nose, his ears, and his hair. Every part had a name that he recognized, though he'd never seen them before. He turned his attention to the rest of his body. He reached down. Arms. Hands. Legs. Feet…

"Don't worry; it's all there," said Dr Wily. "Down to the fingerprints and nose hairs. Although, unfortunately for you, a few of the parts are only for show."

"I wish you wouldn't make jokes at his expense," said Dr. Light behind them.

"Why?" said Dr. Wily. "He has no idea what I'm talking about." He bent down, and the reflection of his angular face peered across at him in the mirror. "_Do you_?"

He shook his head.

"He's going to remember," Dr. Light said, and crossed his arms. "He can remember _everything_."

"So what? He's got to pick up a sense of humor from somebody," said Dr. Wily, "and it's not going to be from _you_." Then he returned his eyes to the mirror, and gazed good-naturedly at the figure's earnest, wide-eyed reflection. He pinched him lightly on the arm. "Hey, does that hurt?"

It did. He yanked his arm away.

"Then that means you're not dreaming," Dr. Wily said. He smiled. "Welcome to life: a little beauty, and a little happiness, here and there. Mostly, a crock of shit."

"Albert," said Dr. Light.

Dr. Wily didn't look up. "Kid, your Uncle Albert may be a bit... blunt... but you can always count on me to tell you the truth.

"Speaking of which, Tom..." Dr. Wily turned around and let out a wheezy sigh. "Are you really sure you want to teach him to speak? After all, once he starts yakking, it won't be long before he asks you why he's here."

Dr. Light shot a dark look at his companion.

"Oh, right," said Dr. Wily with a raise of his eyebrows. "I'll hush up now. Anyway, there's no need for you to worry about that just yet. Whether he's a success still remains to be seen."

"Things will become clearer as time goes on," said Dr. Light, in a voice of barely-contained exasperation. "You know that. There's no reason to doubt we've succeeded."

"All I'm saying is that I care about you, Tom, and I don't want you to get your hopes up too soon. Let's try to take this calmly and rationally, like the men of science we are." Dr. Wily's voice became subdued. "After all this time, I know it would be… a disappointment, to say the least, if this project fell short of the goal—especially since, thanks to you, we can't make any more changes to his programming." He peered down at the figure in the mirror with a look of compassion. "But that wouldn't be _your_ fault, of course. You're just along for the ride."

He watched as the reflections of the two men exchanged a long look. The sight made him uncomfortable, though he didn't know why.

Finally, as if a spell had dissipated, Dr. Light broke his gaze. "Well," he said, "we've got to call Judith."

"Right." Dr. Wily laughed. "It's nearly three in the morning for her—not that she's going to mind."

Dr. Light's reflection turned and shrank away to the netscreen mounted on the adjacent wall. There was a flurry of typing, and a few moments of silent expectation.

"Tom? Is that you?" said the voice of Judith.

"Yes. Were you sleeping?"

"Of course not. He's here, isn't he?"

"Yes, he is. Newly hatched."

"Oh, Tom!" There was a gasp, then a long pause. "Tell me, what's he doing now?"

"Admiring himself in the mirror."

Judith let out a peal of laughter. "That's wonderful," she said. "Our handsome boy." Her voice was delicate and grainy, as though it contained bits of broken glass. "Hello, dear... can you hear me?... Um, is he listening, Tom?"

"I... think so."

He was, indeed, listening—however, since from his vantage he couldn't see her face on the netscreen, her disembodied voice had an unreal quality. And, of course, he couldn't have replied to her even if he'd wanted to.

"Anyway... we're all very glad you're here. We've been waiting for this day for a long time, you know. I'm only sorry I couldn't be there in person. Circumstances..."

"Wouldn't you like to see him now, on the netscreen camera?" said Dr. Light.

"And pull him away from that mirror?" said Judith. "I could never be so cruel. He can't speak yet anyway, right? For now, a video, or a picture or two, will suffice." She let out a gasp of excitement. "Well, now that he's finished, perhaps you could do me a little favor and start on this teleportation idea of yours. Then I could pop over to your side of the world for a visit, and be back home for my cancer treatments by the afternoon."

"Right," Dr. Light said, with reticence in his voice.

"Did I scare you?" said Judith. "Relax, Tom. They keep telling me it's only a bump in the road. Not like…" A silence, long and dark, passed between them. "Anyway," she said at last, in a deliberately cheerier tone, "send me that video as soon as you can, and I'll pass it along to Yuichi—by the way, did you hear he and his wife are expecting any day now?"

"No, actually… We haven't been in contact in months."

Judith tut-tutted him. "You need to get out more. Have you been taking care of yourself at all lately?... I hope you've been sleeping, at least—though, I suppose you can't do much of that now that you've got a baby of your own to look after." She laughed. "Anyway, put Albert on, won't you?"

"I'm right here, beautiful," said Dr. Wily.

"Charming, as always," Judith said. "Knowing you, I hope you haven't poisoned our new guest against the world already."

"The world is going to do that without my help," replied Dr. Wily. "Give it time".

"I thought you'd say something like that. Listen, Albert..." The words she spoke next came out at a run. "...I know you and Tom have had your disagreements about this project. But I expect you've put them aside?"

"Water under the bridge, Judy," Dr. Wily said. "In matters of importance, I've long since decided to defer to Tom's superior intellect."

"No, that's not what I..."

"I know that's not what _you_ meant," he said, "but it's what _I_ meant. It's true. Tom's going to get his way this time, and we'll see where it leads. To big things, I'm sure."

"I'm... glad to hear you think so, Albert," Judith said, though her voice was doubtful. She took an audibly deep breath. "Anyway, congratulations, and a happy new year to you all. And... Albert?"

"Yes?"

"Be kind to the boy, for pity's sake."

To the being crouched in front of the mirror, these human voices around him were a blur of confusion. He knew the individual words they spoke, but when he tried to put them together their meaning was lost. He was ignorant of the competing forces at play between these people called Tom, Albert, and Judith—and Yuichi, who then was nothing more than a name. He only knew that he was helpless, and that he depended on them. If he'd understood the full context behind his creators' words, and known how vital—but hopeless—it was that they stay strong and united for his sake, he would have been terrified.

But just then, Dr. Light, having finished his call with Judith, approached the mirror with a broad smile. He clasped his hands together. "Well, are you ready to see something else?" he said. "Want to go outside?"

He raised his head. Outside. _This means I'm going to see trees._ Tree—the word had the comforting ring of the familiar.

Dr. Light pulled him to his feet and wrapped a steady arm around his shoulder.

"You'll need my help," said Albert, following along behind. "There's a flight of stairs in the way."

Slowly, they guided him up the steps. When they had reached the top, Dr. Light opened a door and the house spread out in front of them.

He toddled ahead, pulling the two men along with him. There were windows all around, and the house, quiet and still, was bathed in the soft white light of a winter's morning.

"This way," Dr. Light said, steering him toward the living room. His feet brushed over a surface that was slightly springy and which smelled of dried grass. They passed by a low table, and he tripped on a zabuton cushion. The two men at his sides grabbed him before he hit the floor, and, grunting, set him back on his feet.

"Christ," said Dr. Wily. "At least you don't have to be toilet trained."

To his left he noticed a green lidded jar, and a photo of a woman, placed in a butsudan—though, at the time, he didn't know or care what any of these things were. He was only thinking about trees.

Perhaps he could even say the word. It was only one syllable, and he wanted to try. He opened his mouth, forced some air out...

"Ki-"

Dr. Wily turned and stared at him. "Did you say something?"

With shaking hands, Dr. Light reached into his pocket and pulled out his camera. "Say it again," he said.

"Ki…"

"Tree?"

Yes, yes, that was it. He nodded.

"You know there will be trees outside, don't you?" said Dr. Light.

He nodded again.

"Trees on the brain, eh?" said Dr. Wily. "That forest simulation—that was _her_ idea to begin with, wasn't it?." He glanced at the photograph in the butsudan as Dr. Light slowly nodded. "Well, she would be pleased."

The two men led him to a curtained window. Somehow, he thought he knew what would be on the other side. Excitement took him over, and he leaned forward and grasped at a section of white cloth. A thin stream of sunlight poured in. _I'm going to see trees. Real trees._

Dr. Light parted the curtains, opened the door, and reached down to slip a pair of shoes on each of their feet. Then they stepped out together into the cold. Dr. Wily remained on the concrete step at the entrance, in his house slippers, watching in silence with Dr. Light's camera in hand.

He glanced back: something about the expression on Dr. Wily's face seemed... odd. At the time, he couldn't discern exactly what it was. Was it disappointment?... Defeat? Only much later would he understand why it was there; for now, it gave him nothing more than a vague sense of unease.

"What are you looking at?" said Dr. Light's gentle voice at his side. "You wanted to see the garden, didn't you?"

He turned—but he was dismayed by what he saw. Most of the trees in the garden, except for the two pines, were missing their leaves. Compared to the ones he had seen in his "dream state," they looked dull, sad, and sickly. The grass was brown.

He craned his head back to look at the sky. Instead of blue, it was pale and grey. The sun was nowhere to be seen. He couldn't even hear the sound of the wind.

_What's wrong with everything?_ He looked at Dr. Light, who was watching him with great interest. He wanted to speak more than ever. _It's wrong, it's all wrong_. If he could only say the words, perhaps his creators could do something to fix the problem. But he hadn't even yet learned to make facial expressions; though he was in distress, there was no way anyone could know.

There was one thing, however, that stood out to him from among the palette of grays and browns. In the left side of the garden was a little tree whose leaves were still green. It was covered in flat, brilliant pink flowers with bright yellow centers. He took a few halting steps forward; Dr. Light realized where he wanted to go, and half-carried him in the right direction. Though he'd never seen the tree with his own eyes before, he heard the three syllables of its name pronounced in his head. _Tsu-ba-ki_. He reached out and took one of the flowers in his hand. Some of the yellow pollen rubbed off onto his thumb.

"You like this camellia?" said Dr. Light.

He looked up at Dr. Light and nodded.

"It's a rare winter bloomer," Dr. Light said. "If you want to see more flowers in this garden, you'll have to wait until spring."

A sound filled his ears, shrill and barking. He craned his head upwards again. Far above him, the black figures of two dozen crows glided across the sky.

"You're in a place called Shizuoka," said Dr. Light, "in a country called Japan. The date is January 3rd, 2061. It's Monday." He looked down at his watch. "It's 11:14 in the morning—and, oh yes—your name is Blues."


	2. Postpartum

The man was crouched behind a tree at the edge of Dr. Light's property. Once in a while, he darted out holding a camera in front of his face—a camera directed at Blues. To Blues, of course, the sight of the camera was nothing unusual—cameras had been a regular feature of his life so far—but he'd never seen this man before. He stood frozen at the window, watching. This was the first human, other than Dr. Light and Dr. Wily, he'd ever seen in person. He was fascinated.

The way the man shrank back behind the tree after each snap of the lens reminded Blues of the game called "peekaboo," which he'd played with Dr. Light in his first week of life. But that had been long ago; Blues wasn't interested in playing "peekaboo" anymore. Why couldn't the man understand that? He shook his head: _no, thank you—_but the man didn't stop.

Obviously, this meant the man was either less than a week old, or very stupid.

But Blues wasn't quite satisfied with that conclusion. Something was stirring within him: a sense of restlesness born of a lack which could be filled only by knowledge he didn't yet have.

He'd been feeling this way a lot lately. There was a word for it... surely...

_Questions._ Yes, that was it! He had _questions_.

* * *

Within the first few months of his activation a tentative cosmology, pieced together from his creators' words and whatever scraps of intelligible data he could gather from the netscreen, had taken shape in Blues's mind. He understood that the world was full of many types of living things, and that he belonged firmly in the human sphere... but he was not human.

Unlike them, he didn't have to eat. Instead, once every five days or so, he inserted the pronged end of a white cord into a tiny hole in his navel. It was connected to a generator, a small cube-shaped box which was his source of energy and life.

Although he looked similar to them, he was made of different materials, or so they said: wires, circuits, lightweight titanium, and synthetic skin, instead of flesh and bone. If he got a small bump or scrape somewhere—and he had many in his first days of life, before his senses of balance and depth perception had finished calibrating themselves—a host of nanobots, instead of cells, would spring into action to repair the wound.

They told him he had a perfect memory, unlike them. When he slept, he didn't dream, unlike them. He could not get sick, and would never grow old, unlike them.

However, it was not the differences they were most concerned with, but the similarities. They said that he had a human mind, with the same capacity for reason and emotion. He could choose his own actions, within the range of human possibilities, instead of following a preset directive. With the obvious exception of taste, he could experience the world through all the human senses; he could then make connections between sensation and empirical data, and create meaning. It was this effort to create meaning, they explained, that made him more than the sum of his parts.

According to them, he was unique in the truest sense of the word—the only one in the whole world. Although his existence was unprecedented, he didn't yet understand its implications, and he didn't mind. The two men kept him comfortable, let him recharge whenever he wanted, and took a tremendous interest in him. For a while, that was enough. It seemed he was at the center of their universe, and in fact he was right—and he assumed the rest of humanity, if it knew about him, would regard him in the same way.

After his creators had finished training him in the use of his fine and gross motor skills, and were satisfied with his speech development, they'd presented him with a series of things which they hoped would capture his attention. There were puzzles, at first as simple as "insert block A into slot B," then increasingly difficult. Some were manipulatives, and others were netscreen images.

Later, they gave him a few sketchbooks and a pencil and asked him to draw whatever he liked—so he went out into the garden and scribbled trees. Then they presented him with art books, and then music which he listened to through a pair of headphones: an object that he grew nearly as fond of as his little box-shaped generator.

Whatever he did, there was Dr. Light's camera flashing all around him, and Dr. Wily typing notes into a netscreen. The sketchbooks, once filled, were gathered up and filed meticulously in chronological order in the living room cabinet. Next to them, his creators kept hard copies of the video files and photographs they'd collected since the day of his activation. They filled dozens of shiny little disks, each one labeled with the phrase "DRN-000" followed by the date. "Evidence," the men called it. Evidence of what, he had no clue. And he didn't know what "DRN-000" was supposed to mean, either.

There was one rule he had to follow, and it was repeated to him over and over again in stern tones: although he could go out into the garden—enclosed by a high stone wall—whenever he wanted, he was not allowed to exit the front of the house unaccompanied.

When he wished to enter the woods that lined Dr. Light's property—and in the spring, the desire became overwhelming—Dr. Wily would go out first, trudge in a wide circle around the perimeter, and give an all-clear. Then, Dr. Light would lead Blues into the trees to be set loose, within limits, to explore. All the while, Dr. Light never took his eyes off him. Dr. Wily, on the other hand, would pace back and forth in the distance, peering outwards. Blues never could figure out exactly what it was that he was looking for. Flowers, or birds, or bugs, he supposed—at least, that's what _he_ usually wanted to see.

To ensure Blues's compliance with the rule, Dr. Light established a nightly ritual that was followed to the letter. When Blues became sleepy and was settled into his futon, often with the beloved generator plugged in and set on the floor beside him, he'd hear Dr. Light's footsteps moving through the house, and the sound of all windows and doors being closed and locked. Then from the foyer would come the sound of six faint beeping notes: the code for the security system, which was kept a secret from him.

Recently, for the first time, he had asked Dr. Light the reason for the rule.

"The rule is for your safety," Dr. Light had replied. "That's all."

_Safety_. But Blues couldn't yet conceive of danger. He obeyed Dr. Light's rule, but didn't understand it. The world still seemed to him like a benevolent place.

That's why, that day, he watched the stranger from the window with curiosity instead of fear.

"Hey, Albert," called Dr. Light's voice from the other side of the house, sudden and flustered. "Do you... see that?"

"Yes, I do," said the voice of Dr. Wily. "Where is Blues?"

"In the study. My God, are the curtains open?"

Before Blues could react or even comprehend what was happening, a pair of footsteps came pounding up the hallway. The door flew open, Dr. Wily stormed through, and Blues was jerked backwards by the collar of his shirt with a force that sent him crashing to the floor.

"Get the hell away from there. Christ's sake." With a flourish Dr. Wily pulled the curtains shut and enveloped the room in darkness.

Blues looked up at him in shock, rubbing at the place where his shirt collar had dug into his neck.

Dr. Wily gave him a pitiful look. "Sorry." He held out a hand and pulled him to his feet. "It was for your own good."

"Who was that?" said Blues, pointing to the window.

"The Devil, as far as we're concerned."

Blues wanted to ask Dr. Wily what that meant, but he stopped himself before opening his mouth. Although Dr. Wily had promised to always tell him the truth, it seemed that the truth never quite came in a form Blues could comprehend.

He remembered when, just a week ago, he had turned to Dr. Light and asked why he'd been created. Dr. Light had looked at him, turned red, and stammered—but Dr. Wily had stepped forward and said with a smile, "well, to lie in the sun and listen to Chopin all day. And that's fortunate, because you happen to be very good at it."

Then he'd narrowed his eyes at Dr. Light. "There, I've bought you some time," he'd said. "Be grateful I was here when the dreaded question came out."

Blues followed Dr. Wily at a run into the hallway. He had no reason to doubt the man's words; however, just now, for the first time in his short life, he began to feel that something was being withheld from him.

Tom was waiting for them in the foyer with his shoes on and his hand pressing down on the door handle. His face was pale.

"Blues," he said, his voice low and tremulous, "what did you see?"

"The Devil," Blues said. "He was holding a camera."

"Devil?... Erm, nevermind. Was he taking pictures?"

"I think so," said Blues. "But mostly, he wanted to play 'peekaboo.'"

Of course, he couldn't understand the reason for the grin that stretched across Dr. Wily's face just then.

Dr. Light let out a groan. "Well, I'm going out," he said. "Just keep him away from the windows until I get back, Albert."

With a sigh, he took his netphone from his pocket and plodded out the door. When he returned a few minutes later, his face had turned from merely pale to stark white.

"Well?" said Dr. Wily, his arms crossed. "What happened?"

"I managed to get a picture of his face," Dr. Light said. "Then, I made a phone call. Takayama said he'd… take care of it."

"'Take care of it?' Good God."

"Bribe him, or threaten him, I expect," said Dr. Light with a heavy voice.

"I'd put my money on 'threaten,'" said Dr. Wily, and clicked his tongue. "Poor sap."

Blues stepped forward. "Who was that man, really?" he said. "And why is Takayama going to 'take care of it?'"

Both of the men's faces turned toward him with anxious looks. "Nevermind that, Blues," said Dr. Wily. "He's gone now. How about a walk?"

"No," Blues said. "I don't want to go for a walk. I want to know the answer to my question."

"Well, there you go." Dr. Wily gave his friend a congratulatory pat on the shoulder. "Here's more of this 'making meaning' thing that you've been looking for. Too bad we didn't get it on camera, and that you're not going to be able to give him an answer."

Dr. Light shot an irate glance at his companion.

"I don't understand," Blues said. "Why can't you give me an answer?"

Dr. Light put his hands up. "I know you're curious," he said. "That's a good thing." He let out a deep sigh. "But, for now, there are some things I can't tell you."

"Then, what if I ask something else?" said Blues. "Why I was created—why is it the 'dreaded question'?"

Dr. Light gave Dr. Wily a hard stare.

Dr. Wily scratched his head and laughed. "It was just a joke, Blues. I didn't really mean it."

Blues turned toward him. "What`s a crock of shit?"

Dr. Wily gave him a funny look. "What are you talking about?"

"You said life is mostly a crock of shit."

"I did?"

"Yes." Although he knew the meanings of the words, the full expression didn't make sense. Blues didn't realize how ridiculous the question was. At the time, to him, it seemed vitally important.

A look of recognition dawned on Dr. Light's face. "Don't you remember?" he said. "You said it the day we activated him."

Dr. Wily scratched his chin. "Ah, well... I suppose I did," he said. He looked at Blues, and let out a wheezy laugh. "It doesn't mean anything, Blues."

Blues shook his head. _No, no_. It had to mean _something_. "But you said..."

"I was being facetious. Sardonic. Wry. Irreverent." He tapped Blues on the side of his head. "You have those words up in here, don't you?"

Blues didn't reply. He knew what the words meant, but was still green to the nuances of human social interaction—and he couldn't imagine why someone would say something that wasn't true.

* * *

On a typical day, Dr. Wily came every morning at ten and left at six. During those eight hours, he and Dr. Light observed and documented Blues, recorded their conversations with him, and provided him with new puzzles or activities to try. In the afternoon there was often a netscreen chat with Judith, whom he now knew as Dr. Sorensen, who'd introduced herself to Blues as one of his creators, and _oohed_ and _aahed_ at him between her analyses of his sketches or performance on his latest computerized logic test. Sometimes she asked him, in her gentle voice, whether he was okay. He wasn't entirely sure what she meant, so he always answered that he was.

Once in a while, especially on weekends, Dr. Wily lingered on late into the night as he and Dr. Light shared a bottle of whiskey over old memories. Most evenings, though, saw Blues and Dr. Light alone together. Dr. Light always prepared a simple meal for himself, usually something that didn't require a lot of effort. Then he'd sit at the small oak dining table in the kitchen and eat, staring with a faraway look as the day's last light peeked in through a crack between the curtains and formed a white line across the floor. Sometimes Blues would stop to stare at the line of sunlight too, assuming it was just what one ought to do at that time of day.

One evening, Blues was outside in the garden watching a flock of sparrows chattering on the stone wall, when Dr. Light opened the door behind him and stepped out.

Blues turned his head, and Dr. Light cleared his throat.

"Blues," he said, with his hands behind his back. "I'd like to... ask you something. Would you... sit with me a little, while I eat?"

It had been their ritual ever since. Dr. Light told him about his childhood in Gunma, his American father, his years at Tokyo University (from which he graduated at the age of seventeen), his overseas postdoctoral studies in computer science, and the woman named Catherine whose photograph and ashes were enshrined in the family butsudan.

Blues was told that Catherine was another of the many people to whom he owed his existence. But when Dr. Light spoke about her, his voice took on a special quality. His eyes darted around a lot, and he stumbled over his words.

Catherine had been dead for many years. And what about Dr. Light's life since then? A blur of sleeplessness, headaches, and work propelled by euphoric flashes of insight. On one hand it was like an eternity; on the other, with little to distinguish one day from the next except for the gradual coming together of Blues's body and mind, the time had seemed to pass by in an instant.

Still only a few months old, Blues did not yet have much to talk about. Content mostly just to listen, he was grateful for any information that helped him to make sense of the world and his own place in it. And, as he sat night after night across the table from this man who had created him, who'd given him his generator, and his soft place to lay on while drifting down into sleep mode, and music, and so many other nice things, he began to feel something new. It was similar to the disappointment he'd felt before his activation when his sense of self had distinguished itself from the world. He wanted to close the distance between himself and Dr. Light, but he didn't know how to do it, or even how to put his predicament into words.

Later, after the six-digit activation of the security system, Blues would retire to his futon and Dr. Light would wish him good night—but the walls were thin, and Blues learned a lot with his ears. Sometimes he'd hear the clinking of bottles, and the sound of a first, or second, or third neat glass of whiskey being poured. Then footsteps would pace slowly around the house, and when they stopped in front of the butsudan, as they did from time to time, Blues always knew exactly what sound would come next.

Sobbing.

"I've been thinking a lot about something Catherine said a long time ago," Dr. Light said to Dr. Wily once, when Blues was in a different room but not quite out of earshot. "When the project first began, she gave us a warning about how we were going to feel when we were finished. Do you remember what she said?"

"Oh, yes," said Dr. Wily. "Something about a 'sense of profound loss.'"

"She was right."

Yes, Catherine had been right. But Dr. Light, genius though he was, hadn't foreseen that Blues was fated to feel a loss as well—one which dug more deeply into him the sharper his senses grew.

Sometimes, on those nights of softly clinking glass and sobbing, when Blues lay listening in the semi-darkness with his duvet pulled up to his chin, he'd stare up at the wooden panels in the ceiling and wonder what was missing from his life. The question gnawed at him. His creators were kind and patient, even indulgent, and he had everything he wanted—or knew at the time that he wanted—but he wasn't happy. What was it? It was an abstract, and he couldn't quite put his finger on it.

It would be years before he figured it out.

And as for the night after the man with the camera had been "taken care of," Blues was ill at ease even with his generator on the floor beside him and Schumann playing through his headphones. Dr. Light had already retired to bed, so the clinking of glass, the shuffling of the man's feet, and the question of whether or not Catherine's shrine would be visited tonight was no longer there to haunt him. But, sure enough, there was that feeling of _loss_ again, stronger than ever.

Vague though it was to his still-forming mind, Blues was determined to name it and to resolve it. And suddenly, the idea popped into his head that he needed to _know_ _more_ in order to do that. He had _questions_. Questions which, he'd only just become aware, his creators had no intention of answering.

On his first day of life, Dr. Light had called him a "fast learner." It was true. Right now his world was very small, and he was innocent and docile—but he recognized that a time was coming, sooner or later, when he'd no longer wait for his creators' answers. A time was coming when he'd take matters into his own hands.

And, for some reason, "_why am I here?_" seemed like a very good place to start.


	3. Closed Curtains

"Well, let's hear it, then," said Dr. Wily. He settled into his chair, crossed one of his ankles over his opposite knee, and held the camera up to his face.

Blues put his fingers down on the keys and listened for the _beep_ which meant the camera had started recording. The study was still and quiet, and the curtains were drawn. He glanced to his side at Dr. Wily, whose posture, so unlike his own, was relaxed and receptive.

With a raise of his eyebrows, the man waved his hand at him. "Go on," he said. "What are you looking at me for?"

Blues turned toward the piano, closed his eyes, and began to play. The piece was Chopin's etude 10, part 3, and a wave of relief washed over him as soon as the first few notes reached his ears. He loved the slow progression of the melody, followed by the ecstatic series of chromatic fourths, and most of all the gentle reprise at the end. And after only two days of practice, he could now play it all from memory.

It had been only a small step from his early appreciation for music to the realization that he could reproduce those beloved sounds on the upright Yamaha piano in Dr. Light`s study. Light especially had been happy to oblige, and he supplied Blues with heavy binders full of sheet music: Schumann, Beethoven, Scarlatti, Liszt, and of course Chopin. Among these, the last was his favorite, and he spent long hours sitting at the bench pouring over nocturnes and mazurkas, committing finger movements to memory.

The study became his favorite room in the house. Sometimes, when it was time for bed, Dr. Light was unable to pull him away from the piano. So, instead of tucking him into the futon in his bedroom as usual, he would bring the generator, set it down on the bench, and leave Blues to himself—and after practicing deep into the night, exhausted, Blues would curl up and let sleep overtake him in the armchair where Dr. Wily now sat.

Dr. Light was excited by his rapid progress, even as he reasoned out loud to himself that it made perfect sense. For him, Blues's interest in music, and the fact that he had taken taken up the hobby of his own volition, was valuable evidence of his humanity. For Blues, it was a welcome escape. As long as he was here, with his mind occupied by musical transcendence, he was able to forget he was a prisoner.

The piece came to an end. After the last chord had faded into silence, Blues heard the _beep_ which signaled that the camera had stopped recording. He turned toward the man in the armchair.

"Your technique's not bad," said Dr. Wily, putting the camera down in his lap. "You even nailed the difficult bit in the middle. But there's no feeling behind the notes. You play like a..." He smirked. "Like a..."

"Like a what?" said Blues.

Dr. Wily doubled over in hysterics.

Blues continued to stare at him, his fingers still resting on the keys. He didn't have a clue what was so funny.

Dr. Wily turned off the camera, got up, and sat beside him on the bench. "Dear boy," he said. "That serious, wide-eyed expression of yours—it looks just like Tom's. There`s no question which of us you spend most of your time with. Kind of a shame, really.

"You know, after Catherine died, I thought this piano would collect dust here forever. Thank you for bringing it back to life." He smiled, and planted a fatherly kiss on Blues`s forehead.

The small gesture of affection took Blues by surprise. Dr. Wily didn't usually do things like this. Blues wasn't sure how to react, so he did nothing; but he decided just then that, if he was ever forced to choose between the two—the kind, earnest, but distant Dr. Light, or the glib and playful Dr. Wily, he would cast his lot in with the latter.

"Anyway," said Dr. Wily, "of course you can't play this piece with feeling yet. Chopin was nostalgic for his native Poland, but what could you possibly be nostalgic for?"

"There is something," said Blues.

Dr. Wily raised his eyebrows at him. "There is?"

"The forest simulation."

"You don't say?" He leaned back and crossed his arms. "But it wasn't real."

"It seemed real." Blues lifted his head and looked around the room, until his eyes settled at last on the pair of drawn curtains in front of the window. "Sometimes, I think it was more real than this."

Dr. Wily's smile broadened. "You have a point," he said. Then he gazed down at Blues`s fingers on the keys, and was silent for at least a minute. His smile slowly faded. Blues watched him with a tinge of paranoia, wondering why the man's expression had suddenly become dark. When the man tried to speak again, his voice cracked. "I'm... I'm sorry, Blues."

"Sorry for what?" Blues knew better than to expect a forthright answer, but hoped for one all the same.

Dr. Wily looked down at his camera and forced out a laugh. "Damn it all," he said. "Your little display of existential doubt just now—it would have been good 'evidence.'"

"Wait," said Blues, and leaned closer. "What are you sorry for?" The question took on a sudden sense of urgency. Dr. Wily often apologized to him for no apparent reason, and since the end of summer the frequency of "sorrys" had started increasing. "Unless... there's something you haven't told me."

Blues thought he saw a little spark of satisfaction in Dr. Wily's eyes, but it fizzled out as quickly as it had appeared. "Well, I'm sorry about your name," Albert said at last. "I'm the one to blame for it. Blues: it's an old kind of music. Sad, like this etude you're playing. You see, Tom hasn't been himself for a long time—most of the time we were putting you together. It started out as a joke, but it just took. Now you're stuck with it. It's even written into your code."

Blues looked down at his lap. He'd never thought, or cared, about the meaning of his name before.

"You can change it if you want, I suppose," said Dr. Wily. "You can be a Taro, or a Ren, or whatever."

"I don't mind," said Blues, disappointed. Though he was grateful for Dr. Wily's story, he knew it had been nothing more than an attempt to distract him. _"How about going for a walk?"_ in a slightly more sophisticated form.

He wanted to protest, to press further, to tell Dr. Wily that he knew—but when he tried to open his mouth it just wouldn't obey. Blues had long ago accepted that it was futile to ask Dr. Wily directly for anything.

And yet, to him, Dr. Wily seemed to be in possession of facts which he yearned to know—and the man hinted at them here and there, especially when Dr. Light was preoccupied at his netscreen downstairs on mornings like this one. Although those bits and pieces—intimations of bad things looming in the future, suggestions that Blues had been created for a sinister purpose, those constant _sorrys_—had not yet formed a coherent whole, Blues had begun to realize that one day they would.

With a disarming smile, Dr. Wily picked up his camera, rose, and went back to his chair. "Anyway, I want you to play that piece again," he said. "From the top. Think of your dream forest while you do it. One more time, Blues. With _feeling_."

* * *

They were hiding something from him. He couldn't imagine what it was, but he knew it had to be important. It was as obvious as the fact that they were hiding _him_ from the world. But one day, he began to make their job more difficult.

It wasn't intentional at first. It started with small acts of defiance, like when he climbed the cherry tree in the garden to get a peek over the top of the stone wall, and Dr. Light had to ask him more than once to come down. Or how, during one of their usual walks in the forest, he suddenly sprinted ahead, leaving the scientists shouting and huffing behind him.

When at last he gave in to their commands to come back, Dr. Light grabbed him by the arm. "Blues," he said, almost at a growl, "you have to obey the rule."

"What if I don't?"

He was surprised to hear a straight answer. "Then there will be no more walks."

"Better listen to him, young man," said Dr. Wily, and lowered the camera to wink at him. "I know you'd miss these trees."

They tightened the reins. They watched him constantly, and even followed him sometimes when he moved from room to room. The security system was left activated even during the day. His netscreen access was restricted—which was like seeing yet another window to the outside shut and concealed behind a curtain.

Just as his thirst for knowledge was reaching its peak, Blues's his world was shrinking around him, but he tried to keep his anger in check out of fear of seeing it shrink even further.

He began to resent their tests and puzzles. He was even starting to tire of his netscreen correspondence with Judith, who since summer had been encouraging him to talk about whatever he wanted. She listened to him with a nonjudgmental ear, her face was warm and kind, and her voice was full of love—but he knew that she was meticulously recording their every interaction, and whenever he asked her a forbidden question about himself and his life, she was just as silent as her colleagues.

One day in November, he refused to participate. Instead, he went out alone into the garden where he sat glaring at the stone wall, willing it to disappear. When he looked behind him, he saw Tom and Albert standing on the other side of the sliding glass door, whispering to each other. Just then, a noise above him caught his attention, and he glanced up: a flock of honking ducks in V formation was making its way slowly across the sky. He experienced a rush of excitement at these new creatures entering his awareness, but the feeling was soon replaced with bitter envy.

He hated the cameras most of all. He knew he was being kept in the dark about their true purpose, and they were intrusive and omnipresent. Just when he had calmed his mind enough to concentrate on something he enjoyed, like the penciled shading of a tree branch in one of his sketchbooks, or an attempt to sight read a new etude, _beep_ went the camera, followed by a flash of light that blinded him.

"Stop it," he said, multiple times each day, but they explained in regretful tones that they could not.

If he couldn't get them to stop, he thought, he could at least sabotage their efforts to get the evidence they wanted.

"Tell me about this picture you sketched today," said Dr. Light, a few days after Blues had first seen the ducks. "What were you thinking as you did this?" It was a sketch he had drawn from memory of the V drifting toward the southern sky, and in the foreground was the maple tree in the right hand corner of the garden, each individual leaf filled in brilliantly in red colored pencil.

Blues was annoyed by the question. He looked toward Dr. Light's video camera without expression. "Nothing," he said. "I wasn't thinking anything."

Dr. Light took a deep breath and forced a patient smile. "I see," he said. "Well, what made you want to draw this, instead of the pine trees, or the camellia, or something inside the house, for example?"

"It's just what I saw," said Blues.

Dr. Wily, who had been watching their exchange in silence from his chair on the other side of the room, jumped to his feet, yanked the camera out of Dr. Light's hands, and shut it off.

"Kid, let me clue you in on something." Dr. Wily loomed over him, so close that Blues could smell a trace of the previous night's whiskey on his breath. "I know what you are, and so does your 'daddy' here, and your netscreen 'mommy.' You've got nothing to prove to _us _anymore. The rest of the world, on the other hand, is going to need some convincing. That's where this comes in." He patted the camera as if it was a beloved cat. "Considering all that advanced processing power we gave your CPU, when the camera's rolling, at least, you could do us a favor and act like there's something going on in there."

Dr. Light bristled. "For God`s sake, Albert, I've asked you not to talk to him like that."

"I'm just helping you out, old friend." Dr. Wily placed his hand on his chest in a mocking _mea culpa_ gesture. "It's what you're thinking anyway, isn't it?" He sighed, and put a hand on Blues's shoulder. "No matter how much it tortures the boy, these videos have to get filmed, and the evidence has to be compiled. After all, this is about the advancement of your career."

"That's enough," said Dr. Light in a rising voice. Then he turned to Blues, and the look in his eyes transformed from anger to fear. "Don't listen to him, Blues. What he said just now—that's not how I feel about you. Not at all."

"You have a choice, Tom," continued Dr. Wily, unfazed. "I believe you're not quite as kind as you'd like him to believe you are. You can either admit I'm right, or accept that you're just a puppet—and that you've given up all accountability whatsoever. Which is it?"

What happened next took Blues completely by surprise. Dr. Light, his face beet red, grabbed Dr. Wily by the back of his shirt and dragged him out of sight into the hallway. There was a scuffle, followed by a door slam. Blues ran after the two men to find that they had gone downstairs into the lab with the door locked behind them. He heard muffled shouting—first the deep and booming voice of Dr. Light, and then Dr. Wily's response, a little higher in pitch but just as forceful.

Frightened, but at the same time filled with nervous excitement, Blues put his ear against the door in hopes of catching some of the content of their argument. He knew it held the key to some of his questions—but the lab was huge, Tom had pulled Albert away into the farthest corner, and their voices seemed to be filtered through several layers of cotton gauze.

Then two sets of heavy footsteps pounded up the stairs, and Blues jumped aside. The door flew open and out came Dr. Wily, sweaty and flustered, with his sleeves rolled up to his elbows. His eyes settled on Blues, and with a sudden wink meant only for him he turned away and scurried toward the door. Tom burst into the hallway after him, fists clenched, with a look of murder in his eyes.

"Get out, get out!"

"Calm down, Tom, would you?" Dr. Wily crouched in the foyer in front of his shoes, shielding himself with his hands. Compared to Dr. Light, who was towering over him, he looked surprisingly small and frail. "I was only trying to be helpful."

"Shut up, and get out of this house!" Tom said.

Dr. Wily yanked his shoes on, threw his coat over his shoulders, and placed his hand over the doorknob. He hesitated. "One more thing," he said, and pointed a shaking finger at Blues. "This mess we've all gotten ourselves into—it's bigger than him. Remember that."

He turned and flung open the door, and the blaring wail of a siren pierced the air. Blues put his hands over his ears. Dr. Light gritted his teeth, rushed forward, and pushed a wincing Dr. Wily out the door.

Dr. Light punched a few numbers into the panel on the wall to stop the noise. Still red, and taking deep labored breaths, he steadied himself against the wall, then cast a terrified glance in Blues's direction. He opened his mouth as if to say something, but nothing came out.

Blues turned and walked away. He went into the study, sat down at the bench, and started to play. He knew Dr. Light wasn't going to give him an explanation for what had just happened, so he didn't bother asking for one.

* * *

That evening, Blues lay down on his futon as usual, and Dr. Light wished him good night and slid shut his bedroom door. But instead of giving in to sleep, Blues stared up at the ceiling and waited. He heard the familiar clinking of glass and the sound of drinks being poured one after another. An hour passed, then two. Finally, he heard Dr. Light's footsteps retiring to his own room, followed shortly by the man's gentle snoring.

Blues got up, slid open the door, and tiptoed out into the hall. He was determined to have an hour or so to do whatever he liked in peace, without the clicking and flashing of cameras to disturb him. The house was dark except for the faint glow of the paper andon lamp in the living room, which cast long shadows across the floor. He went to the window next to the foyer, parted the curtains which had been, of course, drawn, and peered outside. He saw the still grey expanse of the field in front of the house, the dirt road swerving off to the left, and Dr. Light's car parked to the side. Far in the distance was the opening to the forest, a line of sugis whose tops were black against the night sky, and hovering over them, a brilliant full moon.

He realized he wanted his sketchbooks and pencils. He went to the cabinet in the living room, where the art supplies were kept; but when he opened the door, a strange feeling came over him. All of his sketchbooks but one—the one containing the picture he'd been compelled to talk about on camera today—were gone. The collection of video disks Dr. Light had been compiling since the day of his activation was gone too.

Blues then combed through the items on the bookshelf on the adjacent wall. Unsuccessful, and increasingly unsettled, he stepped into the hall, and his eyes came to rest on the darkened outline of the door that led downstairs into the lab.

He hesitated at the top step, staring down into the pitch black below. A rush of cold air rose up to meet him. He felt his way along the wall with his right hand, and his fingers brushed against a switch. He pushed it, and the room beneath his feet was flooded in humming fluorescent light. He was careful to shut the door quietly behind him, and he descended the stairs one wary step at a time.

Dr. Light's lab spread out in front of him. There was the netscreen mounted on one wall, flanked by half a dozen framed diplomas, above a desk littered with papers; a massive bookcase crammed with files and disks, and a few unused tables that had been pushed into one corner beneath the room's one tiny window up near the ceiling. Off to the side, behind a door Blues knew would be locked, was the storage room where Dr. Light kept all his tools and materials. There was the kerosene heater, unplugged and stowed under the desk, and four large tanks of fuel next to the staircase. And near the middle of the room was the stainless steel table, with its circular work lamp hanging above it, where Blues had first awakened eleven months ago.

He shivered. He had never liked this room, and rarely came down here. The fluorescent lights were grating, the walls dull white, and in the winter it was always freezing cold. On the other hand, as the place where he had been assembled and activated, he regarded it with a kind of terrified awe.

Steeling himself, he descended the final step, and his bare feet met ice cold concrete. He remembered his objective. He ran to the desk and leafed through the papers. Then he scoured the bookcase. Finding nothing, he haplessly made one last circuit around the room, finally lowering himself, defeated, into Dr. Light's desk chair. Ready to give up, he put his head down into his hands and let his confusion overtake him.

Just then, he felt a slight warmth in his midsection, tinged with pain. The sensation radiated slowly outward until it reached his fingers and toes, and he shuddered. He had never experienced anything like it before. Even after the original shock of pain was gone, it lingered on afterwards at a subdued intensity, and his head and limbs felt strangely heavy. He had the sudden urge to go upstairs and plug himself into his generator, although it had been only three days since his last charge.

For now, however, he pushed his feelings of discomfort out of his mind. In front of him was Dr. Light's netscreen, silent and dark, which he needed a password to access. He placed his fingers on the keyboard, and the screen lit up and sprung to life. A black line appeared on the screen, waiting to be filled by the right combination of characters. He'd long dreamed of breaking in. Just now a swirl of information had coalesced in his mind, and he had a theory he wanted to try—and with Dr. Light asleep and oblivious upstairs, now was his chance.

He remembered the time, early in the summer, when he had discovered an old photo album on the living room bookshelf: pictures of Catherine as a girl, a young woman, and, later, as Tom's wife. Although Blues had never met her, and in fact knew very little about her, the photographs fascinated him as an artifact of Dr. Light's previous life. He knew the man had loved her deeply, and loved her still—that much was apparent—and one of the photos of Catherine's eighth birthday yielded an important piece of information. At the bottom of the picture, which captured a lanky, long-haired little girl blowing out the eight candles on her birthday cake, was a handwritten date: May 12, 2016.

It was too easy. All he had to do was subtract eight years, convert the month to digits, and Blues had the password he needed.

He was in. The pain in his midsection returned to gnaw at him, but he did his best to ignore it. He felt a surge of triumph. The netscreen was going to give up its secrets—and Blues, at last, was going to learn some answers.

Little did he know that his struggle for the truth about his life would soon be eclipsed by the spectre of its abrupt and early end.


	4. A Problem With Objective Language

**January 3rd, 2061**

_Following initial activation, the subject (DRN-000) is alert and responsive to stimuli. A shiver reflex is observed as a result of the room being cold. The eyes follow, and focus on, objects entering the field of vision. Eye contact with Dr. Wily and myself is observed. Diagnostic findings report all systems have come online successfully. _

_ The subject demonstrates comprehension of simple instructions given in spoken Japanese. A vocalization is observed eight minutes post-activation, but it is unintelligible._

_ After several minutes of training, the subject can walk with assitance. Gross motor movements are laborious and stiff. An averse reaction to the sudden bright light of the camera is noted by a blink reflex and/or a turn of the head._

_ At thirty nine minutes after activation, the subject demonstrates recognition of its own image in a mirror. _

_ At sixty five minutes after activation, the subject vocalizes an intelligble word for the first time ("tree"). This is believed not to be a coincidence, as the subject soon after spends nearly forty minutes looking at the trees in the garden._

**January 6th, 2061**

_The subject can walk without assistance. Gross motor movements are steady. _

_ Speech development: the subject can pronounce the first ten sounds of the Japanese syllibary with accuracy (a-i-u-e-o-ka-ki-ku-ke-ko)._

**January 19th, 2061**

_Gross motor movements are now fluid and natural in appearance. Fine motor skills: the subject can now manipulate small objects and write legibly._

_ Speech development: the subject can pronounce all 46 Japanese syllables and most English sounds. The subject is competent in basic verbal communication and can express needs and wants._

_ Social development: eye contact is appropriate and naturalistic. Facial expressions are used to convey emotions. "Happy," "angry," "surprised," and "distressed" have been observed._

**April 29th, 2061**

_The subject's temperament is becoming more pronounced. Introverted. Likes nature and music. Inquisitive. Easily startled by sudden or loud noises. Prefers concrete over abstract thinking. __**Does not like surprises.**_

_ The subject enjoys drawing, especially trees, flowers, and other features of the natural world._

_ Empathy was demonstrated for the first time today when the subject saw an injured crow in the forest and asked me how it could be helped._

**May 16th, 2061**

_For the first time, the subject asked me why he exists. This predates my estimate by six months._

**September 1st, 2061**

_The subject displayed significant distress following yesterday morning's earthquake. I explained the cause of the phenomenon, and he spent the rest of the day reading about plate tectonics on the netscreen. Frightened by aftershocks. Was very upset to learn about the toll of the '33 Tokai earthquake. Couldn't sleep that night. Asked me to stay by his side._

**September 20th, 2061**

_Last week, the subject began playing the piano. It was his decision, and in fact he is teaching himself. He now spends a minimum of four hours practicing each day. Is making incredible progress (see attached video files). _

**November 9th, 2061**

(deleted)

**November 17th, 2061**

(deleted)

**November 20th, 2061**

(deleted)

* * *

From: Tadashi Takayama

To: Thomas X. Light

Date: 5/23/61

Subject: Re: intruder

Dear Dr. Light,

Thank you for your cooperation regarding the tabloid reporter who was taking photos on your property. We have identified him, and are preparing to contact him today. Please let me know about any other such incidents as they happen. They will be dealt with appropriately.

Takayama

* * *

From: Tadashi Takayama

To: Thomas X. Light

Date: 9/2/61

Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: DRN-000

Dear Dr. Light,

Again, I must remind you to use _objective language_ in your logs. This is not the time and place for you to write about DRN-000`s "feelings."

Thank you for your cooperation.

Takayama

* * *

From: Thomas X. Light

To: Tadashi Takayama

Date: 11/25/61

Subject: urgent

Dear Mr. Takayama,

I am writing to you to shed some light on the events recorded in my most recent logs, as they cannot be adequately explained with _objective language_.

Blues has started refusing to participate in the tests. The reason, he says, is because he is confused regarding their purpose, and because he dislikes cameras.

This is one of many examples of Blues's recent displays of oppositional behavior. I am certain the root cause of this behavior is stress.

He is becoming increasingly despondent about the restrictions placed on his freedom. He keeps asking me to take him out of the house, into the world, so he can visit some of the places he's seen on the netscreen. His questions are relentless, especially those beginning with "why."

Mr. Takayama, I am urging you to let me bring the period of testing and documentation to an end. I'm getting worried about Blues's emotional state, and the extent to which it will decline if he is forced to continue much longer.

I have sent all but one of Blues's sketchbooks, and physical copies of all the video files Dr. Wily and myself have compiled since January. I believe you will agree that this, combined with the other evidence I have sent you so far, is more than enough to declare the project a success and release Blues from his obligations.

I would appreciate an affirmative answer soon.

Tom

* * *

From: Tadashi Takayama

To: Thomas X. Light

Date: 11/25/61

Subject: Re: urgent

Dr. Light,

I understand your request, and I'd like to move this along as much as you would, but these things run on a schedule. Please do your best to endure a little while longer as per our original agreement. If oppositional behavior becomes a problem, let me know and I will send someone to assist you and Dr. Wily in securing DRN-000's compliance.

It would be useful to learn how DRN-000 responds to continued stress.

Takayama

* * *

From: Thomas X. Light

To: Tadashi Takayama

Date: 11/25/61

Subject: Re: Re: urgent

In that case, I must invoke the terms of our contract which give us, Blues's creators, the authority to set the conditions of his care.

To ask us to continue the testing is a violation of that term, as it is not our wish to intentionally put Blues under stress.

In other words, that's a "no."

We don't require any "assistance," either.

* * *

From: Tadashi Takayama

To: Thomas X. Light

Date: 11/26/61

Subject: Re: Re: Re: urgent

I will call you later today. It would be better for us to discuss this matter over the phone. Prepare yourself, since you won't like what you're going to hear.

Takayama

* * *

This was the extent of what Blues was able to read before he gave in to the urge to set his head down on the desk and close his eyes. _I'm so tired_, he thought. _I'll read more after I rest a little while... just a little while..._

The metallic humming of the fluorescent lights lulled him. The gnawing pain in his abdomen faded and disappeared, replaced by warm numbness. Dr. Light's email log was still open on the netscreen, but Blues was past caring. His hands slid out of his lap and dangled at his sides.

That was exactly how Dr. Light found him the next morning.


	5. Bad News, Good News, More Bad News

Blues awoke staring up into the faces of Tom and Albert. The work lamp, which had been turned off, was hanging above him. He realized he was in the lab, lying on the stainless steel table, but a few adjustments had been made with his comfort in mind: his futon and the electric blanket had been placed under him, and a pillow was wedged beneath his head. The generator, which he guessed had been plugged into his navel, but was now disconnected, was at his side.

"Good morning, sleepyhead," said Dr. Wily with a smile. "It`s nice to see you functional again. It was getting awfully quiet around here without your music—not to mention all your pissing and moaning." He winked. "Too quiet."

Blues glanced at one face, then another, and blinked, feeling dazed. He recalled the fight he`d witnessed between Albert and Tom, but it seemed they had already reconciled.

"What happened?" he said.

"Tom found you unconscious, in a rather undignified position," said Albert, with a lopsided smirk. "If you ever had any doubts regarding your nationality, by the way, you can put them to rest now. Apparently you have a knack for falling asleep anywhere, so you must be Japanese. Congratulations—or, perhaps I should say `my condolences.`"

"You`ve been out for a week," said Dr. Light. Unlike Albert, he wasn`t smiling. His nose was red, and his eyes were glassy. "You gave me quite a scare when I couldn`t wake you up. That`s when I did a diagnostic check and discovered your energy level was at zero."

It all came back to him: the search for his missing sketchbooks, his descent into the lab, the password he had used to access the netscreen, the odd pain and the sudden fatigue, Dr. Light`s logs, and the correspondence with the man named Takayama. Blues must have looked frightened at the recollection, because just then Dr. Light put a reassuring hand on his arm.

"You remember what you were doing right before you shut down, don`t you, Blues?" he said.

Blues nodded with trepidation.

"Clever boy," Albert said with a fond smile. "How did you figure out it was Catherine`s birthday?"

Blues looked at Albert`s face, then at Tom`s, surprised not to see the reactions he was expecting. "Aren`t you angry?" he said.

"At you? Of course not," Dr. Light said. "Why would we be angry?"

"We knew, sooner or later, you`d try sticking your nose into some place it doesn`t belong," said Albert. "But if anyone`s to blame, it`s Tom for being so damned transparent." He crossed his arms, and gave Dr. Light an admonishing look. "The man`s supposedly a genius, but he`s too sentimental, or too lazy, to secure his own netscreen with a decent password. You`d better hope he made _you_ a bit more difficult to hack."

"Anyway, what`s done is done," said Tom, with a sigh. "We can`t exactly ask you to forget what you saw."

"In case you were wondering, the security system code has been changed," Albert said, and gave Blues another wink. "So don`t get any big ideas."

"Who`s Takayama?" Blues said.

Tom and Albert looked at each other.

"Before we tell you that," said Dr. Wily, "you`d better tell us what _you_ know first. How much did you learn, anyway?"

Blues shut his eyes. He saw, with perfect clarity, the content of the logs he`d read documenting his development—nothing of which had taught him anything new, except that he was referred to as "the subject" or "DRN-000." Even the email conversation between Tom and Takayama hadn`t yielded much. He`d skipped ahead in several places, and there was a lot he had missed. He had the impression that the two didn`t get along, yet they, and he, were all bound together by a contract that had to be fulfilled. He also knew now that Dr. Light had tried to defend Blues from the procurement of more "evidence," but that, apparently, he had failed.

He looked up at Dr. Light with a feeling of gratitude, although he didn`t fully comprehend it. With his defenses lowered, his found himself telling his creators everything he knew.

"So, you understand that the tests will have to continue, for now," said Tom.

"Perhaps it`s better that you snooped, after all," said Albert. "Now you know we`re on your side. There`s an... agreement, you see, between Takayama and us. We`ll give him what he wants, and he`ll give us what we want."

Blues blinked. He felt lost again. Albert`s words seemed to contradict what he had said just before his fight with Tom. "Wait a minute," he said. "What do we want?"

Dr. Wily leaned in closer and raised his eyebrows. "Your _freedom_," he said. "Of course, Tom gets something else out of the deal too, and the two of us have had our disagreements about that... but that`s all water under the bridge now." As he spoke, Tom gave him a penetrating look, which Albert answered with a sheepish smile. "Anyway, that`s not important. What`s important is _you_. How are you feeling?"

"All right, I guess," Blues said, and closed his hand around the sleeve of his oversized bathrobe. He realized he`d been put into it while he was unconscious. He glanced down. It was parted from the waist up, and his chest cavity was open. He saw bundles of thousands of colored wires, and a few inputs into which three white cords, leading off to the left, had been inserted.

He stared downward, regarding the vision with an air of unreality.

"Oh, right, that`s what your insides look like," said Albert. "You`ve never seen it before, have you?"

Blues shook his head.

"We were... doing some work on you while you were out," said Tom, whose voice had suddenly seemed to become dry. "Mostly, we were investigating something."

"Sorry about making you wear this again," said Albert, and tugged at the sleeve of the bathrobe. "We know it`s not your style, but it makes our job easier, and meanwhile it lets you keep some measure of dignity—though, of course, it`s not like we haven`t seen it all already." He gave Blues a kidding nudge on the elbow. "Anyway, I won`t bore you with the technical details, but the gist of it is that we had to take a lot of stuff out of you and put it back in, in order to find the source of the problem."

"Problem?" Just as Blues said the word, the biting pain in his midsection returned. He clenched his hands at his sides, a gesture his creators observed with worried looks.

"Are you in pain, Blues?" Dr. Light said.

"Yes."

"I was afraid so."

Blues turned to the left, and his eyes followed the white cords to their source: the portable netscreen, behind Dr. Light, on a second table. He saw the words _Diagnostic Findings_ at the top of the screen in white, and underneath, flashing red, the words _Anomaly Detected_.

He tried to push himself upright, but Tom and Albert grasped him by the arms and pressed him gently back onto the table. "Easy, there," said Dr. Light. "We`re not quite finished. It`ll be just a few more minutes."

"What`s wrong with me?"

Dr. Wily cleared his throat, and cast a weary glance at his companion. "Tom, I think you`d better be the one to explain it," he said.

Blues looked up at Dr. Light, who seemed reluctant to return his gaze. Tom took a deep breath. "Well, you see, Blues..." he said, rubbed at his beard, and closed his eyes. "When we created you, it was the first time any programmer had attempted something so... ambitious. We knew you`d require a lot of processing power, but we underestimated just how much..." When Tom opened his eyes again, they were full of fear. "It seems your consciousness has now developed to a point where—we didn`t forsee this—your power core just can`t keep up, and it`s become unstable. You can`t hold a charge as long as you used to, which is why you shut down only three days since your last one, instead of being able to last the usual five or six. In addition, there are some signals getting crossed: that`s where your pain is coming from. And we have a hypothesis... which we hope is wrong..."

Tom glanced at Albert, and Albert, with a wave of his hand, looked away. "We think... well, you`re not done developing yet," Tom continued, and took in a sharp intake of air. "You`re going to keep making new memories, learning, and forming connections—and we think that, the more you do, the more unstable your core will become... until a time when, if nothing is done to fix the problem, there will be a... a.."

"A total system failure." Albert turned back toward Blues, and flashed a bittersweet smile. "In other words, kid," he said, in a watery voice, "you`re too damn smart for your own good. But you already knew that, didn`t you?"

Blues listened with open ears, and began to feel as though he was sinking further downward into the table. It made sense to him, now, why they hadn`t been angry that he`d "stuck his nose" into something forbidden: the reason was that they felt sorry for him. He closed his eyes. His mind was awash with questions, all of them vying with one another for importance. He stammered, but the words he wanted to say didn`t come out.

"Sorry, again," said Dr. Wily. "It`s just `sorry, sorry` all the time from us, isn`t it? I bet you`re thinking it would be nice to hear a `you`re welcome` for once."

"How long will it be?" said Blues. "I mean, until the `total system failure`?"

Dr. Light sighed and shook his head. "We don`t know," he said. "We`d like your help to figure that out. We`re going to start documenting the dates and times when you recharge, as well as your pain levels. Based on that, I think a pattern will emerge, which we can use to calculate the rate of decline. Right now, I can`t give you a definite answer. It could be months, or years. Hopefully, even decades..."

"For God`s sake, man," said Albert. "Aren`t you going to give him the good news too?"

Dr. Light managed a weak smile. "The good news is, we think we can fix the problem in time. Actually, we`re certain we can."

"We created you, after all, and that was no small feat," Dr. Wily said. "Don`t you worry. We`re going to pull out all the stops. Your mom`s even coming, all the way from the other side of the world, to help. You`re going to meet Yuichi, too: a good kid—you`ll like him."

Just then, Dr. Light`s netphone rang. He pulled it out of his pocket, and Albert leaned forward to catch a glimpse at the screen. "Speak of the Devil," he said. "It`s her."

Tom answered, greeted Judith, and after half a minute of pleasantries, the phone was held up to Blues`s ear.

"Blues, is that you?" said Judith`s voice. It sounded to Blues like she was shouting to him from the other side of a tunnel. "Have they explained it all to you yet?"

"Um... yes," he answered, in a voice he himself could barely hear. At the moment, he didn`t feel like talking.

"Hello? Blues, are you okay?"

"I... I think so."

"Don`t be frightened. I helped Tom to design your power core, and we`ve already got an idea or two regarding how to patch it up. In the meantime, if the discomfort gets to be too much, you can ask Tom to turn your pain receptors off. I only recommend it as a temporary measure, though—in excess, it can cause a host of other issues.

"It`ll be a few weeks before I can get to you, but I`ll certainly make it there in time for your birthday. Until then, Tom`s going to do a little more investigating, and draw up a couple of plans for us to try. So just hang in there, all right?"

"All right," said Blues, and had almost placed the netphone back into Tom`s hand, when he suddenly yanked it back against his ear. "Dr. Sorensen?" he said, in a voice that was louder and more urgent.

"Yes, Blues?"

"Why am I here?"

There was silence on the other end of the line. Blues saw Tom and Albert staring down at him with pitiful looks.

He listened to the sound of Judith`s slow breathing for a few moments before, at last, she answered. "We`re going to talk about that when I come to see you. You only have a while longer to wait, so for now, try to put the question out of your mind, relax, and do the things that make you happy." There was an awkward pause during which Judith cleared her throat. "Could you give the phone back to Tom now, dear?"

Instead of doing what she asked, he decided to press harder. "Wait," he said. "This conversation we`re having... are you recording it?"

"I..." Judith let out a small gasp. "No, of course not, Blues," she said.

He glanced around the room, seaching for any sign of a blinking red light. Tom and Albert followed his eyes, and their faces darkened as they realized what he was looking for.

"Blues," said Dr. Light, and took a step closer. "There aren`t any cameras here. It`s just you and us."

"It`s true that you`re an... experiment, of sorts," said the voice of Judith through the netphone, "but you`re more to us than that. Our relationship with you—it isn`t just about gathering `evidence.`"

Reluctantly, Blues held out the phone. Dr. Light took it and cupped his hand over the receiver. "I`ll be right back," he said. "Albert, keep an eye on his energy level while I`m gone." Then he turned and ascended the stairs. Blues and Albert watched him go, and seconds later the two of them heard the sound of the basement door shutting behind him.

Heaving a sigh, Dr. Wily glanced at the netscreen on the opposing table, then down at Blues. "Now, the question you ought to be asking yourself is, `if they`re so sure they can fix me, why do they seem scared out of their wits?`" he said in a lowered voice, and leaned in closer. "You see, Tom and Judith are just like those Showa-era doctors who used to lie about the prognosis to keep their terminal patients in good spirits. They thought it was a mercy, but we in the modern age know that knowledge is power.

"The truth is that we`re not really sure your power core can be fixed—well, not in a manner we`d all be happy with, anyway. The most likely scenario for you is a rapid decline, followed by that `total system failure` we told you about."

Blues stared up at Dr. Wily in silence. He didn`t know how to answer.

"It`s a lot to take in, I know." Albert clasped Blues`s hand in his own, and squeezed. "If you`re as much like us as we think you are, you`ll probably be wondering `why me?` But this suffering you`re soon going to be acquainted with—as you would have learned eventually, one way or another—in this world, well, it`s just the ordinary state of affairs."

An image came to Blues`s mind of the dead crow he`d seen in the forest last spring, crawling with ants. The memory faded, and was replaced with the picture of Catherine next to the green urn in the butsudan, accompanied by the sound of Dr. Light`s feet shuffling against the living room floor.

"Listen," Dr. Wily continued, "and don`t you dare repeat this to Tom: when there`s no other way out, there are humans, sometimes, who take matters into their own hands. Carbon monoxide, sleeping pills, and hanging are tried and true methods, but none of them are going to work for you. If you want to escape, you`re going to have to be a bit more... inventive.

"See those red plastic jugs by the stairs? Do you know what`s in them?"

Blues turned his head to look, but he already knew the answer. "Kerosene," he said, and was surprised by the sound of his own voice. It seemed to come from far away.

"That`s right," Albert said. "If there`s one thing your system can`t endure, it`s extreme heat. Pour some of that on yourself, and light one of the matches in Tom`s desk drawer over there. It will be quick, much quicker even than for a human. For God`s sake, just remember to take your pain receptors offline first. I`ll show you how. It`s a bit tricky at first, but once you get the hang of it..."

It wasn`t until then that Blues realized Dr. Wily was teaching him how to destroy himself.

"Of course, I`m not saying you should actually do it," said Albert, with an emphatic shake of his head. "It`s information, nothing more. Just file this little piece of data away in your memory bank. Whether you use it, or not, is up to you.

"Why am I telling you all this? Because I believe you deserve some measure of control over your own life—and how it`s going to end. Up until now, you`ve had precious little of that.

"There`s something you should know about how your mind works. It was constructed much like a house of cards: remove one component, and the whole thing comes crashing down. Tom insisted on doing it that way, he said, so that you could have faith in your own `psychological integrity,` as he calls it. It was meant to protect you, but in the case of your `anomaly,` it`s going to pose quite an obstacle for us.

"We`re going to do what we can to save you, but I can`t make any promises. If we mess it up, you could be in pretty bad shape before this is all over. I know the others are going to hold out hope to the very end, regardless of what _you_ may want—and they might even decide to do something, as a last resort, that you probably wouldn`t consent to...

"Look at me." Albert`s pale blue eyes were wide. He drew in even closer—so close that Blues had to fight the urge to turn away—and lowered his voice to a whisper. "This is important. We`re getting to the crux of the matter now. Tom and Judith aren`t going to tell you this, but there are two methods we could use to repair your core: an easy one and a hard one. The hard one, the one we`re going to try first, is almost guaranteed to fail. The easy one is sure to work—but, as I think you`d agree, it has its... disadvantages..."

Just then, the basement door opened, and Blues heard the sound of Dr. Light`s footsteps descending the stairs. Dr. Wily straightened himself, cleared his throat, and glanced at the netscreen. Just before Tom`s feet came into view, Albert locked eyes with Blues and put his finger up to his lips. Frightened, Blues nodded in understanding.

Dr. Light appeared at the bottom of the steps with the phone in his hand. "Sorry to keep you waiting," he said. "Albert, where are we at now?"

With another hard glance at the netscreen, Albert pressed his lips together. "Ninety nine point forty five percent," he said. He looked down at his watch. "It`s been almost exactly thirty minutes now since we brought him online, so that means he`s draining at a rate of about one point one percent an hour. Nice round number. That puts us at about... three days, seventeen and a half hours until he reaches zero again—but of course, he`s going to start feeling it long before that."

"All right," said Tom, and joined Albert at Blues`s side. "Now we`ve got some idea of what we`re working with." He looked down at Blues, and put on a brave smile. "Have courage. We`re going to fix this," he said. "You`ll be good as new in no time. But for now, you have things to do, so let`s get you off this table."

Blues watched with a feeling of weary dissociation as they removed the cables from his chest one by one, then as Dr. Light traced his fingers around the cavity, causing it to close up and conceal itself under a panel of synthetic skin. Within a few seconds, the outline of the panel faded and disappeared, leaving no visible trace it was ever there.

"Pretty neat, isn`t it?" said Tom. He seemed to be in somewhat better spirits. There was no way he could have known how bewildered, and terrified, Blues was.

"Yeah," Blues said, still feeling as though his voice was coming from somewhere outside of himself. The two men pulled him up by the arms, and he wrapped himself more tightly in his bathrobe. As he sat upright, by chance his eyes settled on the red jugs of kerosene by the stairs. He looked from one face to the other and knew that one of them—Tom or Albert—was lying about his fate, and he didn`t have a clue which it was. He could never have guessed then that it was both—each for very different reasons.

As they helped him to get up, fluttering and disoriented, from the table, his pain returned—and he realized a new phase of his life was beginning, and that it was going to be lonelier, and more confused, than the first. He got to his feet, and they followed him up the stairs and through the basement door. He took out his coat from the closet in the living room, put it over his shoulders, and went out into the garden.

He squinted up at the sun. It was a bright and cloudless December afternoon. The maple tree, which only a week ago had been covered in blindingly red foliage, was now completely bare. He heard crows cawing in the distance, and smelled woodsmoke which must have blown in from a farm kilometers away: a place he`d never seen, and had no hope of seeing anytime soon. He looked behind him, and saw the shadows of Dr. Light and Dr. Wily peering out at him from behind the sliding glass door.

It would have given him some comfort then to know that the person in whom he`d one day find relief was alive, gazing up at the same sun as him—but she was still a world away, and too early in her own development even to know that she too was mortal. Into those memories, like this one, that were too painful for him to relive just as they happened, he liked to insert the sound of her cool voice calling out to him from the future, echoing Judith`s words urging him to "hang in there."

He made his way toward the camellia, which now, for the first time since the previous winter, was covered in flowers, but a flare of pain stopped him in his tracks before he could reach it. "Hang in there, Blues," said the voice, as he clutched at his stomach. "Just hang in there."

So that`s what he did.


	6. Zero Hour

"What`ll it be now?" Dr. Light leaned forward, held the book above Blues`s upturned face, and began flipping slowly, deliberately through the pages.

"That one," Blues said. He focused his eyes on the photo, taken from a perspective looking up, of a tree whose reddish-brown trunk seemed to disappear into the sky. He recognized it as one of the familiar trees that towered around the perimeter of Dr. Light`s property. By force of habit he tried to point, but his right arm remained where it lay on top of the duvet cover, a deadweight.

Dr. Light lifted the book, and peered down at the picture through the magnified lenses of his bifocals. "You mean the sugi?" he said. "Haven`t we read this one before?"

"No, we haven`t," Blues said, and knew Dr. Light would believe him.

"All right." Tom cleared his throat. "Cryptomeria japonica. Genus cryptomeria, subfamily taxodiaceae. One of the largest evergreen trees. Native to Japan, and cultivated as an ornamental tree in China from antiquity..."

Blues stared up at the wooden panels in the ceiling, counting the knots. He remembered the likenesses of sugis he`d seen in the forest simulation: hulking pillars ringed by premeditated configurations of fallen pinecones. He preferred the real thing, now that he was used to it: the bark had a roughness and smell that was sharper than its dreamland counterpart, and the trunks of some individuals were twisted into formations that gave them a powerful, imperfect beauty. Variation, diversity: these were the things that interested him most within the three square kilometers of wilderness he`d been allowed to explore, and through which he`d gained an inkling of the enormity of the world.

And yet... this real world, filled with sensory input, and seasons, and weather, and life, and music, and people, exacted a heavy toll...

Tom continued to read. "...Grows quickly, and thrives, in warm, humid climates. Used extensively in construction..."

Blues cast a weary glance at Dr. Light, whose eyes were down at the pages, and waited for a pause between sentences.

"Dr. Light?"

Tom lowered the book, and pushed his reading glasses farther up the bridge of his nose. "Yes, Blues?"

"How much longer?"

Dr. Light glanced at his watch. "About twenty eight minutes," he said, "more or less."

Of course, it would probably be "less" rather than "more": as his creators had predicted, he`d lost a few seconds between each of his two previous charges, though they didn`t yet have enough data to confirm whether the rate of decline was constant, or if it was accelerating. For now, they could only hypothesize that it depended, to an undetermined degree, on how much he moved, or _thought_.

The portable netscreen was on the floor beside him, displaying his CPU activity as a side-scrolling series of peaks and valleys. At the bottom of the screen was his energy level represented as a percentage, steadily ticking down to zero. The precise moment he reached it, the moment of the flatline, was what Dr. Light was waiting for. And there, beside the netscreen, was the cube-shaped generator waiting to pull him back from oblivion.

This process was an unpleasant experience for Blues, and on each occasion Dr. Light did his best to keep him comfortable and calm during the last hour when he was too weak to move his limbs. There was music, if he wanted it—or, like today, Dr. Light`s voice reading from a book of his choosing, all in an effort to distract him from the terror of being locked inside his inert body.

A high-pitched screech, which Blues guessed had come from some kind of bird, pierced the silence. He turned his eyes to the curtains covering his bedroom window. A cord of sunlight snaking its way across the floor beneath them, and that screech, were all he could perceive of the outside world—but it was enough to remind him that, out there, the universe was going about its business, taking no notice of him or his flawed power core.

"Blues," Tom said, "do you want me to keep reading?"

"What was that noise?" said Blues.

"Oh, that?" Tom looked at the window. "It sounded like a hawk. Was this your first time to hear one?"

Just then, Blues felt his pain ratcheting up in intensity. Too weakened to grasp at his middle, or even to clench his fists, he squeezed his eyes shut. Seconds later, he noticed Tom`s warm hand pressing on his forehead.

"What number?" Dr. Light said.

He opened his eyes. "Six."

With a glance at his watch, Tom recorded the answer in the notepad he kept next to him on the floor. When he put his pencil down again, he sighed and looked away.

The episode was short lived. Already, Blues perceived the warm tingling in his fingers and toes, slowly creeping inward, which meant he would soon be numb. He knew it also meant he was running out of time to talk.

"When is Judith coming?" he said. He had asked the question a few times before, even to Judith herself, but no one could give him a precise answer.

Dr. Light turned back, pink-nosed. "Another week or two," he said. "She promised she`d be here on your birthday, and she doesn`t break her promises."

But Blues didn`t know whether to look forward to Judith`s arrival, or to dread it. Albert`s words of warning haunted him, and as he stared up into Dr. Light`s face, which looked as always so warm and kind, he was gripped with fear. He felt a sudden urge to run, but of course his body wouldn`t cooperate.

_ "The most likely scenario for you is a rapid decline..._ _Tom and Judith aren`t going to tell you this... They might even decide to do something... you probably wouldn`t consent to.._."

He suddenly remembered how, after last summer`s earthquake, he and Tom had found Catherine`s urn knocked onto its side with a third of its contents spread out on the floor. Blues had then watched as Dr. Light crouched on his knees, scooping up the grey grit with his bare hands. Some of the ashes had been lodged between the tatami mats, or lingered as dark outlines that put the tightly woven blades of grass into stark relief. Of course, it was impossible to salvage it all—sometimes, Dr. Light had said, these things couldn`t be helped—and in the end, traces of Catherine had gone into the vacuum cleaner that was kept in the living room closet.

_Suffering... just the ordinary state of affairs._

His thoughts, dragged along by a process he could no longer control, wandered to the afternoon two days ago when another phone call from Judith had pulled Dr. Light outside with his hand cupped over the receiver—and Dr. Wily, left alone with Blues for the first time in almost a week, had taught him how to open his own chest cavity and recognize the relevant wires which, when detached, would stop any signals of pain from reaching his CPU. As Albert had disconnected them one by one, he`d watched Blues`s eyes carefully to make sure he was paying attention. He then had told Blues to try it once himself. Blues, in a haze of disbelief, had done as he`d asked.

"This is for your own peace of mind, and mine," Dr. Wily had said, as his nimble fingers returned the wires back to their proper inputs. "The truth is, I`ve become rather fond of you, and I`d hate to see you suffer."

Late that night, after Albert had left and Tom had gone to sleep, Blues had felt compelled to go down into the basement and open Dr. Light`s desk drawer, to check whether the box of matches was really there. It was.

_I`m frightened. _The phrase floated up to him from the depths. _I`m frightened, Dr. Light. And you don`t even realize..._

"Blues?" He saw Tom`s face peering down at him with a look of concern. His features were blurry. "What`s the matter? Are you still in pain?"

"No." The numbness had taken him over, and Blues couldn`t feel anything at all.

"Can you feel my hand on yours?"

"No." It was only one word, but he had to struggle to push it out.

"We`re almost finished, then." Dr. Light took a deep breath. "Just like before, you`ll be out for an hour or so while you recharge. Albert`s going to come pay us a visit in the afternoon, and you`ll have a netscreen chat with Judith, and..."

His face, and the room around it, faded to black. Blues closed his eyes. He began to play the opening of Schubert`s B-flat piano sonata in his head, but he couldn`t picture the positioning of his fingers on the keyboard, and he kept losing track of the music mid-phrase and having to start over from the beginning. Soon only the theme, stripped down to its handful of notes, remained; finally, that too was lost.

Another screech entered his awareness, but he couldn`t remember the bird it had come from. The fact he`d forgotten didn`t bother him. Even the name of the man sitting beside him, and the nature of their relationship, slipped his mind. As the particulars dropped out of view, the world felt once more like a benevolent place.

There was no more fear. He sensed a presence at his side, and heard a sonorous voice speaking words of comfort whose feeling and intent, if not their meaning, were understood up until the end.


	7. Nine Billion Views of Mt Fuji

It was Sunday, Dr. Wily`s day off, and by extension it was Blues`s day off too. That meant no tests, no cameras, and no netscreen chats with Judith either. Before he`d learned about his failing power core, Blues might have spent that precious free time in front of the piano, reading a book, or playing cards with Dr. Light at the kitchen table. This morning, however, he found himself lying on his back on the living room floor, warming his legs under the kotatsu and watching the second hand of the clock on the wall as it made its unrelenting revolutions.

_Two days, eighteen hours, thirteen minutes, and six seconds_. Blues counted down the estimated time remaining until he would again lose consciousness with a kind of morbid fascination. Catherine`s urn was a few paces from his head; once in a while he glared at it, and the picture of the smiling dark-haired woman next to it, as if they might be secretly laughing at him.

He heard heavy footsteps coming up the stairs, then the turn of the lock to the basement door. With a pang of anxiety, he pushed himself farther down into the warm embrace of the kotatsu. He knew Dr. Light had been talking with Takayama just now, and that, whatever the topic of their conversation, they hadn`t wanted him to hear it.

Dr. Light emerged. Blues, looking up from the floor, saw the man`s face enter his field of vision, upside-down.

"You're still here," Tom said, "right where I left you an hour ago."

"Conserving energy, I guess," Blues said.

With a sigh, Dr. Light lowered himself to the floor, and placed his folded hands on top of the table. Blues saw the shaded outlines of dark circles under his eyes, and thought he appeared older. "It`d be better for you to keep doing your normal activites," he said. "That would give us a more accurate picture of..." His voice trailed off, and he forced a smile which, to Blues, looked unintentionally grim. "Anyway, why don`t you play something on the piano? You`ve been making good progress recently."

At that moment, they heard another screech in the distance. Blues rolled out from under the kotatsu, jumped to his feet, and made a dash for the sliding glass door. Without even bothering to put on his coat or shoes, he ran into the garden and squinted up at the sky. He saw a huge bird hovering on broad brown wings high above him. For a reason he couldn`t comprehend, the sight made him angry, and he picked up a rock and hurled it into the air. It soared over the top of the stone wall and landed with a dull _thud_ on the other side: a futile gesture.

"Blues." Dr. Light stood in the doorway, his brow furrowed. "That`s not like you."

"Maybe it is." Blues took a few brisk steps toward the door, and watched Tom`s eyes widen. "You said I`m not finished developing yet, right?"

"You like birds."

"I hate them."

"No." Dr. Light slid the door shut behind him, and came down the concrete step with his arms crossed. "You`re unhappy," he said, "and rightfully so. And they can go wherever they want, while you`re stuck here."

"Take me somewhere, then." Blues had said the words without thinking, but the sound of his own voice emboldened him. He took another step forward.

Tom sat down on the step and lifted his face toward the sun. To Blues`s astonishment, he didn`t answer outright with a "no." Instead, he leaned forward with his elbows on his knees. He appeared to be thinking it over.

"Dr. Light?" Blues felt his anger dissipate. His eyes followed Tom`s to the sky, where the hawk continued to float unperturbed. When he lowered them again, Tom was still gazing upward with a faraway look.

"Take me somewhere," Blues said again. "Please."

"You know I shouldn`t," said Tom, and let out a wistful sigh. "Your existence has to be kept a secret, for now. You understand that much, don`t you?"

But to Blues, the words sounded like a tired recitation, and he saw no reason to give up now. "Yes, but I don`t understand _why_," he said.

"A time is coming, much sooner than you realize, when I`ll be free to take you wherever you want," said Dr. Light. "You`ve only got a little while longer to wait. If you could just be patient..."

"How can I be patient when..."

Dr. Light gave him a questioning look. "When what?"

Blues had wanted to say "_when I`m dying,_" but he`d stopped himself just in time. He stammered and looked down at his bare feet, and for the first time realized he was cold. Shivering, he wrapped his arms around himself. "Take me somewhere without people, then," he said. "No one will have to know."

Dr. Light patted the spot beside him on the concrete step. "Blues, come here," he said.

After a moment`s hesitation, Blues sat down. He continued to shiver, and Dr. Light removed his own house coat and wrapped it around his shoulders. Blues, feeling compelled by a force beyond his control, leaned into the momentary embrace.

"Somewhere without people," repeated Tom. He let out a long sigh through his nostrils, looked down at the ground, and narrowed his eyes.

Just then, a minor jolt of pain surged through Blues, and he winced and put his hands on his stomach. He turned toward the man beside him. "Three," he said, without having to be asked.

Tom nodded, drew in a deep breath, and closed his eyes. When he opened them again, he looked back up at the sky. "It`s a clear day," he said. "No clouds. Not too cold, either."

Blues couldn`t understand what was taking so long. He heard crows cawing in the distance, and watched as a breeze picked up a few dry leaves and dragged them from one side of the garden to the other. As the moments ticked by, he felt a twinge growing in the pit of his stomach—but it was nervous tension, rather than pain—and he couldn`t hold back the feeling that he`d already won.

A slow change came over Tom`s face. The lines around the corners of his eyes deepened, and his mouth turned upward into a slight smile. "I know a place we could go," he said at last, "a little off the beaten path. With any luck, the tourists won`t discover it today."

Blues felt his eyes getting wider. Dr. Light looked at him, and for a half-second Blues saw his own excitement mirrored in his creator`s face.

"You mean..."

Tom nodded, but his expression had become solemn. "But if we do this, you have to promise me that you won`t tell anyone—not even Albert, or Judith—and you have to do exactly as I say."

"I promise," said Blues. He couldn`t believe his own ears.

"This is important. It concerns your life and your future. If we get caught breaking our part of the contract, the other side will be freed of their obligation to uphold theirs."

Blues nodded, though he didn`t understand what it all meant. Dr. Light pushed himself to his feet, turned, and went inside. Blues, too shocked to realize what was happening, hesitated on the step.

"Well, are you coming or not?" There was a hint of mischief, the merest suggestion of conspiracy, in his voice. Blues snapped back to himself, leapt up, and scrambled in after him—stumbling over the bottom of Dr. Light`s house coat the whole way.

* * *

To an outside observer it would have looked ridiculous, but Blues hadn`t needed any convincing. For the first time in his life, he was being taken into the world beyond the confines of Dr. Light`s property, and it didn`t bother him that he`d been asked to spend the ride stretched out on the floor of the car, in the backseat, wrapped from feet to chin in a down blanket. He`d been allowed to peek his head out on the condition that he kept his hands firmly clenched to the edge of the blanket—just in case it suddenly became necessary for him to hide.

"Are you all right back there?" called Dr. Light.

"Yeah." The humming of the engine, and the gently vibrating floor beneath him, soothed his racing thoughts. From his vantage point looking up, he could see a procession of treetops flashing by through the window, and behind them, the muted outline of the sun. Once in a while, the trees parted just long enough for the full force of the light to hit him in the face, and he shut his eyes until the brilliance faded. Rather than being annoyed, he regarded it as a kind of game. Novelty had put him in a generous mood. Just for now, his fears, and his fledgling acquaintance with mortality, held no sway. Every few minutes a slight pain pulsed in his stomach, but he paid it no heed.

"Want to listen to some music? Beethoven, or Brahms, maybe?"

He heard the_ ffoom_ of unseen vehicles driving past, and, as the car slowed for a left-hand turn, cheerful human voices: phantoms from a parallel world.

"No, thanks," Blues said, and he watched the side of Dr. Light`s face as he nodded in sympathetic recognition.

"You`re not the only one with cabin fever, you know," said Tom. "I`ve got a case of it too, though it`s not as bad as yours. I haven`t been for a drive like this since the day you were activated." He paused, and let out a chuckle. "Now that I think of it, I`ve barely even left the house. It`s been too much work keeping an eye on you—not that I`m complaining."

Blues had never thought about it before. For as long as he`d been alive, Dr. Light`s groceries had either been delivered, or brought over as a favor by Albert. Every month or so, he spent an hour leaning over the bathroom sink with a pair of ordinary household scissors in hand, trimming his own hair—not well at all, Blues figured, if symmetry was the desired result. Some of his clothes were faded, or even coming undone at the seams, but he wore them anyway—if necessary, with a carefully placed safety pin or two. Blues knew these habits had to be recent developments. Compared to his present self, Dr. Light`s past images in his album photographs looked thinner and significantly better groomed.

Blues then remembered the heating pads that Dr. Light sometimes held to his lower back, the occasional grunting and groaning when he got up from a sitting position: no big deal, Tom had once explained—just the natural consequence of years of poor posture.

"Poor posture, huh?" Judith had said, and laughed, when the subject had come up during one of their netscreen chats. "More like years spent hunched over a table _building_ _you. _Or bent over his desk, typing your code one line at a time. And his lumbar region isn`t the only thing that`s suffered. If long-term sleep deprivation can cause permanent damage, he`s got that also. He was... obsessed, to say the least.

"He wouldn`t tell you any of that, of course. He`s not the type to use guilt, and he doesn`t want you to feel you owe him something for a sacrifice you never asked him to make. When the project began, he was already well aware of the facts of Nature: the creation of new life—no matter how it`s done—always comes at a price.

"Nevertheless..." There had been a pause. When Judith resumed speaking, her voice had become quiet. "Blues," she said, "I know you`ve got quite enough on your plate at the moment, but perhaps when you`re a bit older, and when you`ve grown to care about Tom like I do... I`d be very grateful if you could look after him a little for me, when I`m not there... at the minimum, make sure he eats a vegetable once in a while, goes to bed at a decent hour, and gets the garbage out on time. These nitty gritty necessities of daily life—as I`m sure you`ve seen firsthand—well, they tend to just slip by him unnoticed."

By Blues`s reckoning, they drove for an hour at least. Every so often, a sharp turn pushed him one way or the other. Toward the end of the ride the road became bumpy, and on one occasion the back of the car jerked upward, flinging his entire body into the air.

"Sorry about that," said Dr. Light.

"Where are we going?" said Blues.

"You`ll see," Tom answered, with a smile. "We`re almost there."

"In your log, you wrote that I don`t like surprises."

"You`ll like this one."

The car took a wide left turn, slowed, coursed over a short stretch of gravel, and came to a stop. Blues heard the sound of the key turning in the ignition. The engine lulled, then was quiet. There were no trees in Blues`s one and only visible window, just a uniform rectangle of blue sky. Outside, all he could hear was silence, big and heavy.

Dr. Light craned around in his seat and gave the blanket a gentle pat. "Well, we`re here," he said. "Stay put for just another minute while I check to make sure we`re alone." He turned his head in every direction, his eyes squinting into the distance. Then, he opened the door and stepped out, and Blues listened to the sound of his footsteps crunching against gravel as he circumambulated the car.

At last, Tom returned and shut the door behind him. "It`s okay," he said. "You can come out now."

Not knowing what to expect, Blues sat upright and wriggled out from beneath the blanket. As he hoisted himself up into the back seat of the car, a shock of white pulled his eyes to the window, and he froze.

Bright and conspicuous against the clear blue sky, Mt. Fuji loomed, belted by a row of lesser hills.

Blues let out a gasp. He didn`t have to ask Dr. Light what he was looking at. He`d seen representations of the mountain, both real and stylized, on the netscreen, in Catherine`s photo album, and on the hanging scroll that Tom kept above the alcove in the living room—though none of those things had ever made him feel the way he felt now. In person, the mountain was _immense_.

Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed Tom watching him. "A penny for your thoughts," he said. There were no cameras, no netphones, and nothing to write with. It was only a request for Blues to let Dr. Light into his mind: communication for its own sake.

Blues pressed his hands against the window. "It`s beautiful."

Dr. Light gave him a knowing nod. "I thought you would say that." He leaned back in his seat, and emitted a little hum of pleasure. "And now for the full experience. Watch your fingers."

The windows rolled down, and a flood of cold air poured in. Tom took a deep breath. Blues, with his eyes still on the mountain, wrapped the blanket around himself. For a few minutes they sat together in silence, with nothing between them and the view, sharing a feeling of wonderment for which no words were adequate.

Finally, Tom was the one to break the ice. "So, you think it`s beautiful?" he said. "Would you believe me, Blues, if I told you that what you see is an illusion?"

Blues turned toward his creator, his hands still gripping the blanket. "I don`t understand," he said.

"There`s nothing inherently beautiful about a mountain," Dr. Light said, and crossed his arms. "Fundamentally, it`s just a mass of igneous rock pushed upward by tectonic forces—in the case of this particular mountain, by the meeting of three continental plates. It`s been whittled into its present conical shape by thousands of years of volcanic eruptions. And it happens to be covered in snow for most of the year—just a lot of crystalized water droplets. Tell me, what`s beautiful about any of that?"

Blues glanced at the mountain again, wondering if he had missed something. Dr. Light`s question seemed to him like a kind of challenge, and he felt he was losing.

"I... don`t know," he said.

Dr. Light flashed him a playful smile. "If you hadn`t been such a success, you`d be able to see this mountain for what it is, and nothing more." He sighed. "But you`re conscious, and what`s more, your mind is _human_—or very close to it. Everything you observe gets muddled up with context: your feelings, and your past experiences. It all has to be connected, and to _mean _something.

"This beauty you think you see: it isn`t really there. What`s there is just a mass of rock. The beauty is a product of your mind."

"This beauty in my mind... is it real?" said Blues.

"It`s real to you, at least," said Dr. Light. "Just as mine is to me. But in spite of everything science has revealed to us about how the human mind works, we still haven`t found a way to prove it exists. Consciousness, subjective experience: these are things which, for the time being, we just have to accept on faith.

"Do you understand, Blues, why Albert, Judith, and I are interested in your sketches and your piano playing?" He heaved himself around in his seat, and gave Blues a fond smile. "It`s because, when you draw a picture, or play music, you don`t draw or play only what you see. You add something of yourself to it. When we began our project, many years ago, that made you, that `self` is what we`d hoped to create.

"We can`t exactly prove that it`s there, but we know it when we see it.

"There are nine billion people on this earth. If they all came to this exact spot on a day like today, and looked at this mountain, every one of them would see something different."

Blues looked at the mountain, then back at Dr. Light. "Why am I here?" he said. He locked Tom`s eyes with his. The question was a leap of faith. For the first time in months, Blues felt there could be a chance, however small, of receiving an answer.

Dr. Light turned his eyes to the mountain. "My late wife, Catherine, was a neuroscientist," he said. "Her area of expertise was the subject of consciousness. She believed that human consciousness could be replicated in a synthetic brain, and she wanted nothing more than to test her theory. For that, she needed my help—and I was happy to oblige. _You_ were her guinea pig, and also the thing she loved most in the world." He paused. "If only... she could have had the chance to meet you."

"You climbed this mountain with her," said Blues, remembering the photo he had seen of a young Tom and Catherine smiling, arms raised, above a sea of clouds.

"Lots of people do," Dr. Light said. "We were young then, and we still had plenty of life ahead of us."

Blues looked down at his own hands clutching the blanket. Glad as he was to learn about Catherine`s role in his creation, he felt something wasn`t quite right. Tom turned away, and Blues heard him let out another sigh.

"Are you afraid of dying, Blues?" he said at last, in a low voice.

The question took Blues by surprise, but he didn`t have to think about the answer. "Yes," he said.

"All living things fear death," said Dr. Light. "It`s an instinct, programmed from birth—and it`s programmed into _you_, too: there was no getting around it. But, for creatures like you and me who attach meaning to our experience, death also holds a special kind of terror. It means the extinction of beautiful moments like this—and of the ego that made them possible in the first place."

Blues became aware of his pain, and he sank down a little deeper into the blanket. The feeling was there to some degree almost all of the time, a murmur of discomfort in the background. Even when it wasn`t strong enough to dominate his thoughts, it remained like an unwanted visitor at the door, constantly knocking.

"Am I dying, Dr. Light?"

"Of course not," Tom said.

"I feel like I am," said Blues.

"Well, I can understand why you would think so—but you`re not dying. Not anytime soon, anyway. Your core flaw`s going to be fixed. It may take weeks, or months, for us to get it worked out, but we`ll finish in time. Do you trust me?"

Blues didn`t know whether he did or not, but he thought it would be best to answer in the affirmative. He nodded absentmindedly, realized that Dr. Light couldn`t see him, and finally managed to vocalize a quiet "yes."

"That`s good." There was a long pause. "Listen, Blues. There`s... something that I`ve been wanting to tell you... It`s important for you to know." Another pause. "You see..."

Blues stared at the back of the seat in front of him. "Yes, Dr. Light?" he said.

Tom cleared his throat. "I`m sorry that it`s taken me so long to say this. I should have done it right at the beginning—I know it would have helped you—but, back then, I tried to keep a lid on my feelings because I didn`t want to get my hopes up too much... because, well, at first, I couldn`t be completely sure... Now, anyway, there`s no doubt, so... No matter what happens, I want you to remember this..."

"Catherine and I, we..." He cleared his throat again. "...We couldn`t have children, and you... well, you were intended to be... I mean, you still are..." Dr. Light`s voice turned watery, then came to an abrupt stop. Blues heard the sound of Tom shifting in his chair. "Well, do you understand what I`m saying, Blues?"

"I..." He wasn`t exactly sure what Dr. Light meant. For several moments Blues sat completely still, waiting for an explanation to come—but it didn`t.

"Dr. Light?"

There was no answer.

Blues got up, moved to the left, and leaned his head forward into the front seat of the car. Tom was huddled in his chair, red-faced, wiping at his eyes with his hand towel.

"Dr. Light?" Blues stared, feeling himself at a loss for words. He`d never imagined that this was what he was going to see. "Are you... okay?"

"I`m fine," Dr. Light answered, in a small voice. "I thought... after all these years, I`d be able to visit this spot again and... keep myself together. Perhaps I would have been able to, if we`d come at another time of the year. But... I suppose I don`t do well with Decembers... not since..."

His voice faded, and he turned away toward the open window.

Blues forgot all about the mountain, the pain in his stomach, and the need for him to be ready to hide at a moment`s notice. He climbed into the front seat and settled down beside Tom. After a minute spent wondering what else to do, he leaned in closer, and put his hand on Dr. Light`s shoulder. Tom turned and managed a weak smile.

"You`re not dying, Blues," he said, "but I admit there was a short time, when you were unconscious, and Albert and I were still trying to figure out what was wrong..." He folded the hand towel, and set it down on the dashboard. "We didn`t know then whether we could save you or not, and there was a phrase that kept going through my mind..." Tears appeared at the corners of his eyes.

"What was it?"

"It was..." Tom looked away. "`Not you, too.`"

_One of them is lying to me_. Blues tried, and failed, to swat the nagging feeling away. _One of them can`t be trusted. But why?_

A collection of data points appeared in his mind`s eye. Lines formed between them, forging new connections. He closed his eyes in a futile attempt to shut out the picture that emerged.

_One of them is going to try to hurt me_.

He remembered his hand was still on Dr. Light`s shoulder. _Please_, he thought. _Please, don`t let it be him_.


	8. First Impressions

"Seventy five degrees." Dr. Light pointed to the number on top of the electric kettle, and pressed the button beside it. The numerals lit up and glowed yellow, and shortly afterward Blues heard the familiar sound of gently hissing water. "Well below boiling temperature. If it`s too hot, the leaves will burn and the tea will be bitter."

"Bitter?" Blues looked down at the leaves in the strainer. He`d never tasted bitter tea—he had no sense of taste, after all—and he wasn`t sure he`d smelled anything bitter either.

"That means it won`t taste good." Dr. Light wiped at his brow with his hand towel. "I suppose it`s not really that important," he said. "But Takayama`s going to notice, one way or the other." As if he sensed what Blues wanted to do, he pried the strainer out of the teapot and placed it into his hands. "Here. Go ahead and give it a whiff."

The smell was at once sweet and astringent, like fresh grass. "It`s nice, I guess," Blues said.

"You guess?" Dr. Light let out a self-satisfied huff. "And to think people have been making a big fuss over this stuff for hundreds of years."

Blues placed the mesh cradle of leaves back into the pot. Beside it, a single fired and laquered clay teacup stood at the ready. Dr. Light slid the pot under the electric kettle and poured in some steaming water.

"Let it steep for a minute or so," he said. "Then, when you pour it into the cup, it should come to about here." He filled the cup just a hair`s breadth more than halfway. "Not all the way to the top—he`ll risk spilling it on himself..." Here, his mouth curled into a devious smile that took Blues by surprise. "—Unless you want to, of course."

Blues glanced up, and Tom made eye contact with him and laughed—that reassuring signal which meant _"I was only kidding."_ He was always grateful when Dr. Light did this. Although his creators promised him his social skills would improve with experience, he was starting to become frustrated by his present limitations, and he especially hated the feeling that context and nonverbal cues were passing him by. He greatly preferred Dr. Light`s patient attempts at clarification, even though they reminded him of his own ignorance, over Dr. Wily`s non-approach—which was to forge ahead in the conversation and leave Blues floundering in confusion.

Blues looked down at the little cup half-filled with tea. He wasn`t sure how to respond to Dr. Light`s joke, so he decided to ask a general question instead."Why are you teaching me this?" he said. "I don`t drink tea."

"Of course you don`t, but Takayama does, and..." Tom looked up at the ceiling, and scratched at his silver-flecked beard. "When he gets here, we`ve got to make him a cup of tea. It`s just a formality. And it would be appropriate if you were the one to do it."

"Why me?"

Tom crossed his arms. "Well, that`s a good question."

Blues felt his eyelids becoming heavy. He leaned against against the kitchen counter and stared out the small window above the sink. Outside, little white flakes were falling—the first snow of the season. For a few moments he stood there in a daze, transfixed by the convergence of movement: the steam rising up from the tea and the snow coming down.

_"That`s a good question"_ had recently become Dr. Light`s stock answer, but Blues was too tired to protest. He had only a few hours` worth of energy left, and was beginning to feel worn out. Even the sight of the snow—the first he`d seen in ten months—wasn`t enough to rouse his interest. In addition to the fatigue in his body, he had the sense that everything around him was moving in fast-motion, that the world was leaving him behind.

He looked down at the white shirt, freshly pressed and smelling of starch, that Dr. Light had asked him to wear, and he tugged at the knot in his tie.

"Don`t pull on it," Tom said. "It`ll come loose."

"It`s tight," said Blues.

"You`re just not used to it." Dr. Light leaned in close and readjusted the knot, and Blues noticed that Tom`s hands were shaking. "It`s another formality," he said. "You can take it off as soon as..." He cleared his throat. "...As soon as he leaves."

"Why do I have to meet Takayama this morning, when I`m..." He clutched the edge of the countertop more firmly. "...When I`m like this? Or is that a _good question_, too?"

"He`s a busy man, and this is his only chance to meet you before the New Year holiday," said Tom. "I know it`s not ideal. Just hang in there. You can have a rest and a recharge afterwards." He looked away and rubbed at his nose. "How`s your pain?"

"Not too bad."

"Good. Anyway..." Dr. Light`s eyes wandered up toward the window, and he stared outside for a few seconds at nothing in particular with his mouth slightly open.

"Dr. Light?"

"Huh?" Tom appeared to come back to himself, turned, and clasped his hands onto Blues`s shoulders. "Anyway," he said again, and steered Blues gently into the living room, "why don`t you go out and watch the snow for a while? And take this with you." He stopped, opened the cabinet drawer, and produced a pencil and Blues`s last remaining sketchbook. "I`ll come and get you when Takayama arrives." Then he wrapped Blues in his wool coat, and with a little pat on the back guided him toward the sliding glass door—and Blues, with his head in a fog, stepped out into the garden alone with his art supplies in hand.

"But..."

Before Blues could register what was happening, the door closed behind him, Dr. Light disappeared, and he was greeted by the soft and noble silence of a snowy morning.

He hesitated on the step, watching his breath float upwards. He glanced down at his sketchbook, remembered that Takayama had the rest, and realized he was angry. _They`re mine, _he thought_. I want them back. _

He wasn`t in the mood to draw. For a reason he couldn`t yet grasp, he felt ill at ease. He turned around, slid open the door, and stepped back up into the house—just in time to hear the contents of the teacup splash into the sink, followed by the low, hollow _pop_ of the stopper being removed from Dr. Light`s whiskey bottle. There was a sound of liquid being poured, a few moments of silence, then the grainy _clink_ of the teacup being thrust down onto the counter. Then a gasp, followed by a sob. It was just before ten o`clock in the morning.

Something was terribly wrong.

"Dr. Light?" Blues left the door wide open, and on unsteady feet dragged himself toward the kitchen. His pencil and sketchbook slid out of his hands and slumped to the floor. He heard another _clink_ of glass, and the liquor cabinet door being hastily opened and shut.

He reached the hallway, and was about to turn into the kitchen when he crashed face-first into something dark and soft. He felt himself being pushed backwards, and he looked up into the exasperated face of Dr. Wily.

"Christ almighty, kid," Albert said, with his hands held out in front of him. "You scared the piss out of me."

Blues backed away. "S—sorry..."

"What`s the matter? You look like you`ve seen a ghost. And why are you wearing your coat?"

He heard footsteps approaching from his right, and he turned. Dr. Light was standing beside him, stone-faced. Blues stared. He thought he detected the smell of whiskey, but he didn`t dare to ask.

Albert looked at Blues, then at Tom. "Am I interrupting something?" he said.

They shook their heads.

"Anyway, good morning, you two," Dr. Wily said. "I let myself in. Takayama will be here any moment now—in fact, I passed him on the freeway. He was being driven in a van with tinted back windows. Not his usual car. Strange, don`t you think?" There was a pause, during which he gave Tom a hard stare.

Dr. Light crossed his arms and looked down at his house slippers.

"Hello? Anyone home?" Blues heard Albert`s voice, saw a hand waving in front of his face, and he blinked. "Well, forget it. You`re not at your best this morning, are you? But nevermind that. The show must go on. Right, Tom?"

"R... right," said Tom in a subdued voice.

"Well, the boy cleans up nice, anyway," Dr. Wily said, and tugged at the bottom of Blues`s tie. "This is a big day, after all. Did you pick this color out yourself?"

Blues nodded.

"Green. Suits you." He let out a long sigh. "By the way, why is it so damn cold in here?"

Then the doorbell rang.

* * *

"As you already know, we`ve been reviewing your documentation of his development these past several months with great interest..."

Blues sat cross-legged on his cushion with both hands gripping the edge of the low table. He was aware that Dr. Light was on his left, Dr. Wily on his right, and Takayama in front, and that words were being exchanged between them—but it took a concentrated effort on his part to follow what those words were. Once in a while, he began to sway in one direction or another, and each time either Tom or Albert leaned in, took him by the arm, and pushed him upright.

"...Let me take this opportunity to thank both of you personally for your hard work, and especially for your compliance with the terms of our contract. I know it`s been difficult at times..."

Blues stared down at the half-filled cup of tea in front of Takayama, now cold and as-yet untouched. By some miracle, he had managed to transport it from the kitchen to the table without incident. The official introductions between himself and Takayama had flown by; Blues remembered bowing and offering his hand, but for some reason neither gesture had been returned. Takayama hadn`t even thanked him for the tea. He`d thought to himself that this was rather odd behavior, but Takayama, it seemed, was an odd kind of human.

Tadashi Takayama was a squat, wide-faced man, with salt-and-pepper hair and cheeks dotted with pockmarks—but his most distinguishing feature was a dark, raised mole, two centimeters wide or more, in the middle of his neck. Despite his best efforts to the contrary, Blues found his eyes wandering down to it again and again—a faux pas which perhaps would have been easier to avoid, if Takayama wasn`t in the habit of turning it between his fingers once a minute or so.

"...And since the period of documentation is nearly finished, it`s time for us to discuss what`s going to happen next..."

Blues felt a hard jab in his side, and he raised his head. "Wake up," hissed Dr. Wily in his ear. "This is no time to take a nap. Did you hear what the man just said?"

He had. "You mean..." said Blues, feeling a rush of renewed energy, "there won`t be any more tests, or cameras? Will I get my sketchbooks back?"

But instead of answering Blues directly, Takayama turned to Dr. Light.

"I see no reason not to go ahead with the original plans we`ve made. I need to ask for your continued cooperation over the next few days..."

"I understand," said Dr. Light.

"...Although, I have to tell you that we`re going to proceed with a degree of caution, considering the defect that you`ve brought to our attention..."

Blues became aware of Takayama`s eyes scrutinizing him. It seemed to him that the man was waiting for something, but Blues couldn`t imagine what it was. He shifted a little on his cushion and moved himself closer to Dr. Light.

"Oh, right, the defect," Dr. Wily said, and leaned forward with his elbows resting on the table. "Well, we first knew there was something wrong when we realized that, despite what he looks like, we`ve never caught him looking at Tom`s old magazines. Not even once."

Dr. Light let out a disgruntled sigh.

"What I was referring to, of course, Dr. Wily," said Takayama, and widened his eyes, "is his core flaw." He paused and rubbed at the mole in his neck—and Blues saw Albert grimace. "We`d like to see this issue resolved quickly, so I`m going to give you a deadline: March first. If you can`t come up with a workable solution by then, I`ll need to bring him in and have another team take a look at the problem."

Dr. Light`s eyes widened. He leaned forward and glanced to his right, and Blues followed his gaze to find Tom and Albert exchanging looks of restrained panic.

"No," said Tom at last. He put a hand on Blues`s shoulder. "If anyone`s capable of repairing his core, it`s the team that built him... whether it takes two months, or ten."

"We`ve already got a deadline, anyway," said Albert, "and that`s the lifespan of the first core. According to some people, that`s pressing enough."

"March first," said Takayama.

Dr. Light raised his hands. "But the contract gives us..."

"`...The authority to set the conditions of his care,`" Takayama said. "Yes, I`m aware of that. But the contract also allows for contingencies, to be determined by the company, in the case that flaws are discovered in the prototype`s hardware design. Perhaps you`ve forgotten that clause," He narrowed his eyes. "What we need is a functional product, and we`ve waited long enough already.

"I`m giving you two months. Can you do it or not?"

Blues looked at Dr. Light on his left, Dr. Wily on his right, and Takayama in front, not sure what was happening. He understood the meaning of Takayama`s words, but had no idea what "company," "prototype," and "product" were supposed to refer to. In a quiet plea for help he turned toward Dr. Light, but he was staring straight ahead of him with a vacant look in his eyes.

"Calm down, both of you," said Takayama. "You`re not under attack." He leaned his back against the wall. "We were expecting some setbacks along the way. And, hardware issues notwithstanding, we believe that the software is going to meet our expectations.

"Anyway, why should it matter who designs and installs a new core, as long as the job gets done?"

"Because it`s an invasive procedure that`s going to require gutting him from navel to neck," said Albert. "It`s a big complicated mess in here..." With one hand he grabbed Blues by the arm, and with the other gave him a couple of big _thumps_ on the chest: a gesture which, together with the words he`d just uttered, made Blues recoil. "-Sorry, kid, I`m just trying to make a point—and any repairs that extensive are going to require specialized knowledge. _Our_ specialized knowledge."

Takayama sucked some air in through his teeth. "I can understand how, after so many years of work, you`ve come to feel that this project is your `baby,`" he said. "But that knowledge you`re talking about—remember, it`s not going to be specialized for long. It was never intended to be."

"I know," said Albert, "but I`m not talking about the project _per se_. I`m talking about _him_. The `_software_,` as you call it—this particular iteration of it. You see, after all this hassle is finished, Tom here, and Judith, Yuichi, and I, are the ones who are going to have to live with him. He can be a bit quiet at times, dull even—when he`s not being ornery, that is—but for the most part, we like him just fine the way he is now. What we`re afraid of is that, if we hand him over to a bunch of newcomers to be fixed, and they do a slap-dash job of it..."

Blues nearly jumped at the sound of Dr. Light forcefully clearing his throat. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Tom`s shoulders stiffen.

But Dr. Wily seemed to take no notice, and he pressed on. "I`m saying there are risks involved." He put on a grim smile. "Are you a music lover by chance, Mr. Takayama?"

"We can finish within two months," Dr. Light said, in a terse and forceful voice. "Especially since our colleagues are coming soon to help. It won`t be necessary to call in another team. _Right_, Albert?"

"Oh, absolutely." Albert gave Tom a long look. Then he crossed his arms and stared at the spot on Takayama`s neck, and Blues saw his mouth curl into a playful grin. "We only need to... _fiddle around_ with the defect a little more."

Blues would never understand why it had to happen then, at a time when his senses were dulled and he was caught in the grip of a steadily rising unease. It didn`t even bother him, at the moment, that Dr. Wily was making light of his suffering. It was as though something just clicked into place—one last missing connection that, when formed, allowed him to perceive the both the double meaning of Dr. Wily`s words and the fact that they were wildly inappropriate.

In spite of himself, he laughed.

Tom and Albert jerked their heads in his direction. "Did you just..." said Dr. Wily. His eyes were wide. "You did, didn`t you?"

Blues didn`t know what to say. He turned to his left, and saw Dr. Light`s eyes darting from him to Takayama and back with a look halfway between excitement and mortification.

Albert cleared his throat. "As I was saying," he said, "we can do it by your deadline, Takayama. Sleeping is overrated, anyway. Besides, one point that _sticks out_ for me..." He narrowed his eyes at Takayama`s neck, and he snickered. "...Is our hypothesis that the health of his current power core is inversely related to his cognitive... _growth_..."

Blues put his hands over his mouth and looked down at his lap. To his left, he noticed Dr. Light staring in Dr. Wily`s direction and emphatically shaking his head.

"Albert," he said, "let`s get back on topic."

"By the way, Mr. Takayama, I couldn`t help but notice that you haven`t engaged with the software at all today," said Dr. Wily. "Not even a `hi, how are you?` or a `sorry to hear about your health condition.`" He paused. "Could you pick up a classical station on that dial of yours? The boy likes classical music, you know."

"Are you finished yet, Dr. Wily?" Takayama gave Albert a censurious look, stood up, and removed his netphone from his pocket. "Gentlemen, if you`d excuse me... I`ve got to go outside to make a phone call. When I come back, I hope you`ll be ready to talk business again."

Dr. Light, his face red, heaved himself to his feet and hurriedly escorted Takayama to the door. He returned with his arms crossed.

"Albert." The word came out like a subdued growl. "What do you think you`re doing?"

"Enjoying myself," he said. "Fawning deference to authority—I suppose it just never took with me."

Tom stared at him, his eyes wide in exasperation. "Having a laugh at his appearance—what`s your point?"

"My point is that the guy is disgusting," said Albert. He clutched Blues by the arm and gave him a little shake. "Anyway, didn`t you see what he did? My God, Tom, did you notice it at all?"

"Of course I did." Dr. Light`s voice was stern. "But Takayama`s visit here today is no joke."

"Yes, Tom, it is a joke, and the boy was in dire need of some loosening up. His tastes run a bit lowbrow at the moment, but nevermind. Listen," he said, and looked Blues in the eye. "We`re born, and we die. Everything in between is just a series of distractions.

"Tom, why are you so concerned about Takayama`s feelings? You already know he`s going to have the last laugh today."

"Albert..."

"Hey, Blues, want to hear something really funny? The real joke`s on _you_. After all this beating around the bush and talk about things that might or might not happen two months from now, you still don`t know what Takayama came here for."

Dr. Light`s mouth dropped open, and he raised his arms: a sign, Blues knew, that Albert had said too much.

"What did he come here for?" said Blues.

Before Tom could stop him, Albert leaned forward and put his finger on Blues`s nose. "_You_."

Blues stared. He felt a twinge of pain in his stomach, and a pall of fatigue settled over him. He glanced to his side at Dr. Light, whose face was locked in an expression of grim resignation. He turned back to Dr. Wily. "What are you talking about?" he said.

"The very last round of testing and documentation," said Albert. "It has to be completed at Nurtech`s laboratory by an objective third party—or so they say. And Takayama`s going to take you there this morning."

"What`s Nurtech?"

Dr. Wily nodded in Dr. Light`s direction. "After you, Tom," he said.

Dr. Light was staring down at the table with his hands clutching his knees. "Nurtech... is the company that financed your creation."

"How`s he supposed to know what that means?" said Albert. "You have to spell it out for him. Tell him what`s going to happen next."

"Well... I..."

Blues felt his head and limbs becoming heavy. He slumped forward toward the table, but Dr. Wily grabbed him by the shoulders and yanked him upright. "Not yet, kid," he said. "We`re talking about your life—the stuff you`ve been wanting to hear."

But Blues wasn`t thinking about that. He was staring toward his left, wondering why Tom wouldn`t look him in the eye. "Dr. Light, I... don`t want Takayama to take me anywhere," he said. "Don`t let him... Tell him no."

Tom took his hand towel out of his pocket and wiped at his face. "I can`t," he said.

"Why not?" Blues gazed with longing at the snow-filled garden through the sliding glass door: a world of sights, sounds, and smells that was comprehensible to him and demanded nothing of him. Silhouetted against the grey luster, he saw Dr. Light`s face turn away, and his heart lurched. "Dr. Light..."

Blues heard footsteps approaching from the foyer, and he turned his head to see Takayama returning with his netphone in hand. The sight filled him with dread. At that moment, in his state of weary confusion, Blues realized the man was the source of a dissatisfaction that ran much deeper than his annoyance over a few confiscated sketchbooks. The cameras, the locks and alarms, the Rule, the closed curtains, and the long months of confinement: it had all been done at Takayama`s behest. He remembered Dr. Light`s plea on his behalf to end the period of testing early—which Takayama had denied. And then there was today... It was clear that, for all the power the man wielded over his life, he was making decisions without regard for Blues`s feelings—and either was not aware, or was even willfully refusing to acknowledge, that he had feelings at all...

Blues pushed himself to his feet. In a last-ditch burst of energy he leapt at Takayama and squeezed his hands around his neck.

Takayama sputtered and collapsed to the floor, and Blues was pulled down with him. He heard shouting behind him, then the pounding of footsteps, and felt two rough pairs of hands yanking at his arms.

"Let go," said Dr. Light into his ear, at a low growl. "Damn it, Blues."

But Blues held on, disoriented and terrified, and watched as Takayama`s face turned from pink to red. He saw the man`s eyes bulge. Then he heard a _smack_, felt a sharp pain in his cheek, and he gasped. His grip loosened from around Takayama`s neck, and he was dragged backwards. As he looked on in a helpless rage, Takayama took in a few huge gulps of air and scooted himself away across the floor.

Blues struggled, but his knees buckled beneath him, and he felt himself being lowered onto his side. When he tried to push himself upright again, his body was impossibly heavy. He spent a few desperate moments in futile exertion, but a sudden flare of pain crippled him. He grabbed at his stomach and clenched his teeth, but there was no one beside him just then to notice.

He heard coughing, and he turned his gaze to the other side of the living room. Tom and Albert were helping Takayama to his feet.

"I`m so sorry," said Dr. Light in a watery voice. "Please... He`s been under a lot of stress... I don`t know what else to say..."

Blues shut his eyes. He felt a familiar tingling in his toes and fingertips, signaling that his energy level was almost down to zero, and he let out a groan. _Not now_, he thought. _You have to get up... do something..._

The voices of Dr. Light and Takayama faded away, and he heard approaching footsteps.

"Well, that was interesting," said Albert. "A nice show of spirit. I won`t say Takayama didn`t deserve that—but he`s only a cog, one of many. If you really want to be left alone, you`ve got a lot of humans to throttle."

Blues felt his body tense up, and he forced his eyes open. "Tell me," he said. "Dr. Light... he..."

"It was a dirty trick, I know," Albert said. "Tom was afraid of what Nurtech might do if your `oppositional behavior` made an appearance today. He would have hated to see you dragged out of here kicking and screaming. He thought it would be easier on you if you were a bit... sedated... Well, he`s a sensitive soul, and I suppose his intentions were good—but he didn`t get the timing quite right, and you know what they say about good intentions..."

Blues didn`t know, and didn`t care to ask. "I`m not going to Nurtech," he said. As soon as he spoke the words, he realized they must have sounded ridiculous.

He saw Albert`s feet, sheathed in white socks, step in front of his face. "You`re going," he said, "and there`s not a thing you, or Tom, or I, can do to stop it. These events were set in motion long ago, when you were nothing more than a brain on a desk.

"You`ve been living under the impression that Tom and I, and our ragtag team of friends both living and dead, were your makers. Wrong. Nurtech is your maker; we`re just their grunts for hire. Going there won`t be exactly like meeting God—a God, if there was one, probably wouldn`t care as much about things like stockholders and profit margins—but for you, it`s as close as you`re going to get.

"Rest assured, they`re not going to harm you—you`re an expensive piece of technology, after all: by far their biggest investment to date. They just want to make sure they got their money`s worth. And you`ll be happy to know that, at the very least, they`ll extend you the courtesy of a full charge."

Blues felt a shadow creep across his back, and heard Dr. Wily`s raspy breathing next to his ear. "For my part in all of this, I`m sorry," he said, and gave Blues a couple of firm pats on the arm. "Give `em hell, kid."

For a few moments the world dropped out of view. Blues heard muffled voices and footsteps going back and forth. Finally, someone sat down beside him on the floor. He felt a man`s breath on his face, smelled the faint, familiar scent of whiskey, and a lull settled over him. He let his limbs relax. The floor let out a gentle _creak_, and a warm hand squeezed him on the shoulder. By an act of sheer will he had for the moment blocked out the memory, newly-formed, of the same hand striking him minutes before.

"I want my generator, Dr. Light," said Blues. "Please."

"No, Blues. You need to be out for a while."

"Nurtech... what are they going to do with me?"

Dr. Light took a deep breath. "When you become unconscious, you`ll be transported to Nurtech`s lab. It`s not far from here—about a half hour`s drive." His speech was slow and methodical, as though he was making a conscious effort to sound calm. "While you`re asleep, they're going to do some 3-D imaging... and spend a few days studying how your body works, together with the schemas Albert, Judith, and I created when we were building you. Then, on the last day, they`ll wake you up and do one last round of tests... I`m not sure exactly what they`ve got planned, but they're probably going to ask you a lot of questions. Just be yourself, and do your best to cooperate. You`ll come home that same evening."

"But why..."

"Tom, it`s time," said Albert`s voice. "Takayama`s sent his assistants in to pick the kid up. He wants to get this over with."

There were more approaching footsteps, the sound of two pairs of feet padding across the tatami floor.

"Excuse us," said an unfamiliar man`s voice. "So, this is him?"

Dr. Light didn`t reply.

"We`re going to take him to the van now. If you don`t mind getting out of the way..."

"Wait," said Tom. Blues felt the hand on his shoulder tighten. "Tell Takayama that I expect him to be treated with kindness and dignity while he`s there, even if he doesn`t comply.

"His core flaw is causing him pain. Your people need to be aware of that. Be patient with him, and..."

"Right, of course," said the man`s voice. "Don`t worry. He`ll be returned to you in good condition."

"That`s... not what I meant." There was a pause. "I mean... This is Catherine`s... This is my..."

"Get a hold of yourself, Tom," said Albert. "You knew this day was coming."

"How much does he weigh?" said the voice. "About forty five kilos, maybe?"

"Forty-four point three," Dr. Light said, and sniffed.

Blues was rolled onto his back by unseen hands. He opened his eyes. Dr. Light`s face was above him, and Catherine`s urn to his left. Just then, out of the corner of his eye, Takayama's two assistants came into view, expressionless and waiting.

"Dr. Light, don't let them take me."

"Blues, I`m going to shut you down now," said Dr. Light, and pressed his lips together. "See you soon." His eyes stared downward in a look of cold determination, and with a flustered sigh, he tugged upwards at Blues`s shirttail and began undoing the buttons from the bottom up.

"No, don`t..." Blues thrust out his arms in an attempt to push him away, but he heard brisk footsteps coming from behind.

"Need my help?" said the voice of Dr. Wily. Two hands reached across Blues's field of vision. In one swift, decisive movement, they caught hold of his wrists and pulled them above his head.

"Dr. Wily, let go of me."

"Trust us, kid. It`s better this way," said Dr. Wily. "I half expect one of these knuckleheads to drop you between here and the stretcher."

"Dr. Light, don't..."

"Blues, don`t be afraid."

"Dr. Li-"


	9. Turing Test, part 1

Blues woke up in a blind panic. Five faces surrounded him—all of them unfamiliar. He blinked up at the rows of fluorescent lights in the ceiling, and his shoes scuffed against a hard linoleum floor. He struggled; but two men, one on each side of him, locked their hands around his arms and pushed him back down into his chair.

"No, no..."

"Blues," said one of the faces, a woman`s. "Do you know where you are?"

He stared down at the two pairs of hands squeezing into him, and gave up all hope of freeing himself. He closed his eyes. A flood of memories came rushing back: the way he`d attacked Takayama, his sapped energy reserves, his creators` betrayal, his feelings of helplessness and panic, and his newfound knowledge of the company that had ordered his construction and held sway over his life and his future—to what degree, he still didn`t know.

"Nurtech, right?" he said, and felt his heart sink.

"That`s right," said the woman. She had dark, straight, chin-length hair, and deep creases at the outer corners of her eyes. She and the two men beside her wore white lab coats, something which Blues hadn`t seen since his first day of life. "And I`m Riko Morita, computer science department chair of Tsukuba University." She pointed to her left. "This is Hide Ogata, professor of robotics at Carnegie Melon University, and Eiichi Ando, one of the top psychologists in the country. And these men on either side of you..." She paused. "...Well, they`re here for our protection.

"So now you know who we are. As for _you_..." She took a step forward, and he shrank a little under her gaze. "We already know your name is `Blues,` but our goal today is to get a better idea regarding what, or _who_, you are.

"By the way, I`m curious about the meaning of your name. Is it an acronym?"

It took Blues a full minute or more to answer. Overwhelmed by these strangers surrounding him, and the cold, harsh whiteness of the room, he stared down at the floor in an attempt to stay focused.

"No," he said. "Or... I don`t think so, anyway. Dr. Wily once told me it was a joke that just took."

"A joke?" Out of the corner of his eye, Blues saw Morita smile a little. "Interesting. Could you explain it to us, then?"

"Well..." He looked up. "Dr. Light... he was depressed—or so I heard—when he was building me, and Dr. Wily can be... glib sometimes, I guess." He paused, unsure what else he could say. "It`s not really a funny joke, is it?"

"No, not really," said Morita, and gave him a slightly puzzled look.

Blues looked down at his body. He was still wearing the same white dress shirt and black trousers he`d put on the morning of Takayama`s visit, but his clothes were wrinkled, and his tie had been taken off and draped loosely around his neck. It was then that he remembered Dr. Light`s last words to him before rendering him unconscious.

"You opened me up," he said.

"Not us," said Ogata, a stocky, boyish-faced man with thick gray hair cropped high against his forehead. "Some of Nurtech`s in-house technicians did that. Would you... mind it, if we had?"

"Yes, I would," said Blues.

Ogata and Morita looked at each other.

"Don`t you work for Nurtech?"

"No," Morita said. "The company invited us to come here to assess you today, and we jumped at the chance—especially Ogata here, who traveled all the way from America for the privilege. We're going into this mostly blind, except for a page of notes we received from Dr. Light about how to make you more comfortable... which in itself is interesting, to say the least." She cleared her throat. "You know, Nurtech has made some rather ambitious claims about you. Has anyone told you what those claims are?"

Blues glanced down at the hands clutching each of his arms. He didn't have a clue what Nurtech thought of him, but he knew what his creators did.

"I guess so," he said. "That I'm conscious, and that I have a human mind... or something like it. Is that it?"

"Yes, it is," said Morita. She leaned in close. "And if those claims are true, it`s going to turn our world upside down."

There was tension in her voice. Behind her, Ogata was fidgeting with his hands, and Ando, tall and bespectacled, who so far had been silent, was standing a little to the side with his arms crossed and staring at Blues with a look of poorly masked incredulity.

"But Dr. Light said it can`t be proven."

"Well, I suppose he`s right," Morita said. "The `proof` lies in how much you can manage to fool us into forgetting you`re not human—and though I`m going to try my best to be impartial, I have to admit I`d like very much to be fooled."

Ogata put his hands behind his back. "We—at least Morita and I—are quite familiar with Dr. Light`s early research, of course. He`s world famous. We _thought_ some of his ideas were only meant to be theoretical, but when he dropped out of the public eye years ago, we and our colleagues knew he had to be working on something big." He pawed at his nose. "`Consciousness` and `strong A.I.`: these concepts were abandoned by the field long ago—but if Dr. Light says he`s built a conscious robot, we`ll sit up and listen."

"I..." Blues didn`t know what to say. There had once been a time in his life when he`d accepted his own existence as a matter of course. His world was composed of the sensations he perceived and the feelings he felt, and he had a body which did mostly what he asked it to do—he didn`t experience himself as an oddity or a marvel. He didn`t care whether any of the claims about him would be "proven" today or not. He already knew how he, and his creators, felt—the only people whose opinions mattered to him, anyway—and he had no desire to turn the world upside down.

Acutely aware of their eyes on him, he sank deeper into his chair. He wanted to disappear, but there was nowhere to go. Deprived of the freedom to move his arms, he couldn`t even hide his face in his hands.

"So, you`re going to test me?" he said.

"We`d like to," said Morita. "But we can`t do it without your cooperation."

"And what if I don`t cooperate?"

"Nurtech said they`ll keep you here until you do," said Ogata. "And I suppose we`ll all just have to wait—but don`t keep us waiting too long, okay? We`ve got families, you know."

"What happens if I pass—or if I fail?"

"I`m afraid we don`t know that," Morita said. "That`s for the company, and your creators, to decide."

"And when the test is over, I can go home?"

"That`s what we`ve been told."

Blues closed his eyes. He imagined the sights and sounds of Dr. Light`s house: the thin lines of sunlight that peeked in between cracks in the curtains, the cawing of crows out in the garden, the armchair in the study where he slept after a long night of piano practice, the oak dining table where he and Dr. Light played gin after dinner, Catherine`s shrine and the hush of the darkened living room, and his soft futon where he`d once felt warm and safe.

Now that he`d been awake for a few minutes, he felt the pain in his middle returning. With it came the memory of the stinging in his cheek, and an aching realization that the home he was going back to wouldn`t be the same as the one he`d left.

"Home," he said, and opened his eyes again. "Dr. Light... I wanted to trust him, but I don`t think I can. It hurts..."

But the faces stared back at him with blank expressions, and he realized they had no idea what he was talking about.

From a point up near the ceiling, a blinking red light caught his eye. _There it is_, he thought. All his life up to now: the slow and steady course of his development since his activation, and the decades of dreaming before that; the hundreds of disks filled up with video files whose accumulation he`d at first accepted unawares, then tolerated, and at last begrudged; Dr. Light`s logs, Dr. Wily`s notes, and Judith`s netscreen chats; the contract with Nurtech, and the failed negotiations with Takayama—it had all led to this.

He resigned himself. The only way out was through.

"Blues, hang in there," a familiar voice called out to him, the beloved voice from the future.

The room, and the people in it, faded momentarily out of view. "If I can hear you, then none of this is really happening," Blues said.

"You`re right," said the voice. "It`s only a memory, and you can stick me into any memory you want."

"Thanks. I need you in this one."

"All right. But, Blues?"

"Yes?"

"Just remember: you made it through the first time without me."

Everything came back into focus. Morita, Ogata, and Ando were casting sideways glances at each other. He raised his head.

"Okay," he said. "Tell me what I have to do."

* * *

They took him to a room equipped with a netscreen on a desk; beyond it was a row of tables stretching to the opposite wall, each outfitted with apparati whose purposes he couldn`t guess. The sight of it all made him want to flee. He must have looked frightened, because Morita gave him a reassuring smile.

"In this room, we`re going to check your vision and hearing, your nervous system response to stimuli—things like that. The point is for us to learn how you take in sensory data. Nothing to be afraid of. Humans undergo these kinds of examinations all the time."

The security guards released their hold on him, and he was allowed to move around freely on the condition, they said, that he would follow where Morita led him. Ogata lingered just behind, taking notes on a portable netscreen, and Blues looked around to discover that Ando was gone—at some point, he`d disappeared without explanation.

Morita guided him from table to table. She tested his visual acuity, depth perception, color vision, and hearing. She held strips of paper up to his nose and asked him to identify their scents. She showed him pictures on the netscreen of rooms filled with various objects, then asked him to close his eyes and name as many as he could remember—which was, of course, all of them.

The answers to her questions were by nature short, and required little conscious thought or feeling. When Morita had first introduced herself to him, he`d had the vague impression she was going to ask him to draw a picture, or talk about how listening to Chopin made him feel, or something otherwise similar to the "evidence" he was accustomed to producing for Dr. Light and Dr. Wily. Blues completed test after test in a daze, all the while wondering if this was all there was.

At one of the tables she blindfolded him, placed various objects into his hands, and asked him to describe their textures: a seashell, sandpaper, spun wool, a feather. Then, while he was still blindfolded, she took one of his hands in hers, and a sharp pain pierced one of his fingers—he yelped, ripped off the blindfold, and saw his own feelings of shock reflected in her face. She was holding a needle.

Ogata, who had been watching Blues in silent fascination, put down his netscreen and wiped his hand across his forehead. "Jesus," he said.

Morita dropped the needle as if it was hot. "I... apologize for that," she said. "Nurtech said that you have a pain response."

Blues drew back and turned away, feeling he`d been wounded in more than just his finger. "If you wanted to see how I respond to pain," he said, and put a shaking hand on his stomach, "all you had to do was wait a while."

Morita went silent, and Ogata sucked in air through his teeth. "Jesus," he said again.

* * *

Next, they led him to a room across the hall that was mostly empty. In one corner was a desk and three chairs, beside which Blues saw a closed cardboard box.

"Well, it`s my turn now," Ogata said, and waved him toward a chair. "Here, Blues, come and sit down with me." He flashed a sheepish grin. "Don`t be shy—I promise I don`t have any needles in that box."

One of the security guards gave Blues a little nudge, but he remained where he stood in the doorway. "What are you going to do?" he said.

"Have a better look at how you move," Ogata said. "I`d like to see your fine motor skills first: I`ve heard your creators put a lot of work into getting your hands just right."

With reluctance, Blues stepped into the room and seated himself across from Ogata, and Ogata gave him a good-natured smile which put him slightly more at ease. Morita entered the room behind him and stood off to the side with the netscreen in hand.

Ogata instructed Blues to put both his hands palm-up on the table and wiggle each of his fingers one at a time. He then asked Blues to squeeze his hand as hard as he could.

"My _hand_, not my neck, all right?" he said.

Blues laughed.

Next, Ogata handed him a series of manipulatives. At the man`s request, Blues opened a jar, turned a key in a lock, wrote "My name is Blues" with a pencil and paper, used his fingernails to pry open a soda can, unbuttoned and buttoned his own dress shirt, laced a length of yarn with tiny colored beads, and rotated the sides of a Rubik`s cube—which he then solved within a minute.

"Show off," said Ogata, and put the items back into the box. "Well, I`d like to see your gross motor movements now. Could you take off your shirt and trousers, please?"

Blues stared, and Ogata, mirroring his discomfort, leaned back. "Er... I need to see how your joints move, and I can`t do that if you`re wearing clothes. Ever heard of something called biomimetics? No need to feel embarrassed... would you? I mean, would you feel embarrassed?"

"A little," said Blues, impassive.

"You`re kidding me." Ogata let out an unnerved sigh, turned to the side, and muttered profanities to himself. "I`m sorry," he said at last. "It`s just that I'm not used to working with robots with skin—or opinions. You`re... a bit unorthodox, you know? This is new to me."

"Me too," Blues said.

"Well, nevermind," said Ogata, and coughed into his elbow. "Don`t worry. I`m not going to make you run around in your skivvies. Now that I think of it, it`s a ridiculous idea. Erm... you wear skivvies, do you?"

Blues didn`t answer.

After a few moments of hemming and hawing, Ogata suggested that Blues roll up the legs of his trousers past his knees and his sleeves above his elbows. Grateful for the compromise, Blues did as he was asked.

Then, under Ogata`s directions and the watch of Morita`s netscreen camera, he walked, jogged, jumped, and ran laps around the room, all the while feeling a vague sense of humiliation which he could not yet put to words. Years later, when he would first learn about performing animals in circuses, he`d find an apt comparison.

He looked back once in a while to see Morita and Ogata casting long stares at each other.

"Private funding," said Ogata to himself, and sucked in more air through his teeth.

"Every last penny," added Morita.

"Please," said Blues, and wedged himself between them. "Tell me what that means."

They looked away. "We don`t know what it means," said Morita, and with an apologetic look raised the netscreen and asked him to walk another lap.

He was relieved when Ogata asked him to stop much earlier than expected. The man crossed his arms and let out a long sigh. "Well, Blues," he said, "that`s enough of that. How about something a little more... befitting?" He reached down into the box and, after a bit of digging around, produced a pair of well-worn baseball gloves and a ball. He rose from his chair and took an eager step forward. Morita managed a slight smile.

"Ever play catch before?"

* * *

After noon, Morita and Ogata began to talk amongst themselves about lunch, and there was a brief debate concerning what to do with Blues. They`d been instructed by Nurtech to keep him in shutdown mode for the hour, but he protested so loudly that in the end they gave up and arranged for the security guards to take him to one of the staff break rooms instead. Once he was in, the door was pulled shut behind him and locked from the outside.

Blues knew what he wanted to do, and he got straight to work. The rage he`d struggled to hold back all morning burst out of him. He hurled a chair across the room, then another. He upended the tables one by one. He tore into the cabinets above the sink, smashed glasses and teacups against the wall, and dumped out the contents of a huge cannister of ground coffee onto the floor. Then he set upon a bookshelf packed with magazines, ripping out pages by the fistfull. He then turned his attention to the netscreen mounted on the wall, which was broadcasting a news program at low volume. He picked up the remote control, swung his arm back, and let it soar—and the screen shattered with a percussive and satisfying _crack_.

He realized he`d run out of things to break. Surrounded by fragments of glass and ripped paper, cringing at the chill of the fluorescent lighting beating down on him, a surge of fresh pain pulsed in his stomach—and he tilted his head back and screamed.

"Oh my God, Yuichi, that sounds like..."

Somehow, in the midst of the commotion, Blues heard a distant familiar voice—a woman`s voice—and he fell silent. Many pairs of rapid footsteps came pattering across the hall, and moments later he felt a presence press itself up against the other side of the door. There was frantic knocking and futile twists and pulls at the doorknob.

"Blues, is that you in there?" Judith`s voice called. "Are you okay?"

He drew closer to the door, then shrank back again, caught in the grip of alternating feelings of excitement and terror. "Yeah... it`s me," he said at last. As he spoke the words, a wave of hope propelled him back toward the source of the voice. _She came to help fix my core_, he thought. _And she promised she`d tell me why I`m here..._ _She came, she finally came..._

He pushed Dr. Wily`s warning out of his mind. He didn`t have a clue what Judith had planned for him, but for the moment, meeting her seemed to him like a better alternative than staying in this room alone with his pain until the end of the lunch hour.

"I`m not okay," he called out, as an afterthought. Then, unable to contain his feelings any longer, he pounded his fists against the door. "Dr. Sorensen! I`m not okay... I want out!"

"Don`t worry, Blues," she said. "We`re going to get this door open. Just sit tight."

"Help me!"

"Mr. Harada, please hurry..."

"Almost got it," said an unfamiliar man`s voice, which was followed by the clanging of multiple keys jostling together. "Yes, this is the one..."

"Oh, Yuichi..." Judith`s heels clicked against the floor outside in a nervous rhythm as though she was pacing back and forth. Blues heard a key going into the lock. Then the doorknob turned, and he took a few anxious steps backward.

The door opened. Judith and Yuichi were staring down at him with looks of concern.

"Happy birthday, Blues," they said.


	10. Turing Test, part 2

Blues stood frozen in the middle of the room with his hands clenched at his sides, staring up at the figures in the doorway. Up until now, he'd only seen Judith via her netscreen camera, and only from the neck up. She was taller than he'd expected, paler, and thinner too—she had a look of defeated but lingering frailty. Her frizzled grey hair, pulled back into a messy ponytail, put her soft and gentle face into stark relief. As if to offset the ghostliness of her features, she wore a bright yellow scarf around her neck. Yuichi, standing beside her, was a little shorter in stature—young, slender, full of life, and wearing a fitted suit.

"Well, we made it," Judith said with a contented sigh. "And it looks like not a moment too soon. I bet your other one year old doesn't throw tantrums of this caliber, Yuichi."

"Whoa." As Yuichi stepped into the room, his shoes crunched against broken glass. At last his eyes settled on the remains of the shattered coffee jar, surrounded by bits of black detritus, and he looked up at Blues with a wry smile. "I don't like that brand either," he said.

It took a few seconds for Blues to realize what Yuichi had meant, but it was better late than never. Feeling a little more at ease, he laughed.

"Oh, there it is." Judith clutched Yuichi by the arm. "It's different than I imagined. Even better. How wonderful."

Mr. Harada, still holding his fistful of keys, peeked his head into the room in dismay. "He trashed the place," he said. "That netscreen was expensive, you know."

"Sorry about that," said Judith, although she didn't look particularly sorry. "Tell Takayama he can send us the bill.

"Anyway, Yu, he already knows me, perhaps more than he would like—but the two of you haven't been acquainted yet. Go on and introduce yourself, would you?"

"All right," said Yuichi. "Hi, Blues." He bowed, and clasped Blues's hand in a firm shake. "I'm Yuichi Nishikawa, and under Dr. Light's tutelage I programmed your memory consolidation systems. And I've heard I did a pretty good job at it..." There was a pregnant pause. "...Which is why I'm never going to borrow money from you."

Yuichi leaned in close, his hand still grasping Blues's. He seemed to be expecting something. After a few moments, he shrank back looking a bit sheepish.

"No good, eh?" he said. "I suppose you don't have much experience with money, do you?"

Blues shook his head.

"Well, it was a good try," said Judith. She gave Blues a wink. "Just you wait. We'll get another laugh out of you yet."

Blues stared up at them, flummoxed. A nagging voice in the back of his mind told him he ought to be angry with them, or at least suspicious of their motives. But here in the flesh, their smiles were disarming, and he liked the feeling of being fawned and fussed over. Confused though he was, he was glad to see them.

"Dr. Sorensen," he said, "why are you here?"

"I was wondering when you'd ask." She drew closer, and for the first time Blues detected the smell of perfume. "Yuichi and I met up in Tokyo this morning, and traveled here together—and we couldn't wait 'till this evening to meet you. It was quite an ordeal getting Nurtech to let us in, but a call from our lawyer finally did the trick. The contract says we're not allowed to be present for your tests today—as if you might be a counting horse or something—but you're not being tested right now, are you?" She looked down at her watch. "We have thirty eight minutes left., so let's use our time wisely. Well, first things first."

With a bittersweet smile, she leaned down and enveloped him in her arms. "Oh, I've waited so long to do this," she said.

It was a strange mix of new sensations: the sudden closeness of their bodies, Judith`s hands around him, the heady scent of her perfume, his head cradled under her chin, and something fleshy and soft pressed against his face—which he later realized was one of her breasts.

After a few moments, she reached down to where his hands were hanging at his sides and moved them up to her back. He realized, with a suddden pang of embarrassment, that this was called a "hug," and that he ought to have reciprocated sooner.

"That`s better, isn`t it?" She let out a good-natured laugh. "Well, you don`t get much of this at home, do you? Those two you`ve fallen in with—they`re just a couple of brains that forget they have bodies attached. But I know Tom is doing his best. He loves you, even though it doesn`t always come naturally to him to show it."

Her words made him gasp. In response, Judith gave him an affirming rub on the back.

"Dr. Sorensen," he said, "there's so much I want to know. Why I'm here, and what Nurtech wants with me..." He remembered she and Yuichi had said it was his birthday, and with a shudder realized he'd been here unconscious for nearly a week. He wriggled out of Judith's arms and took a step back. "What they did with me while I was out... I don't like being taken places without my consent..."

Judith looked him squarely in the eye, and her face had become solemn. "We've had to keep you in the dark about a lot of things," she said, and glanced over her shoulder at Mr. Harada standing watch at the door. She lowered her voice to a near-whisper. "Listen. We got you into this mess, and we're going to get you out of it. But you have to trust us." Then she reached out and cradled his face in her hands, and her eyes grew wide. "Trust us."

Feeling he had no other choice, Blues nodded.

With a weak smile, Judith put a gentle hand over his stomach. "I'm sorry about this power core issue, Blues. It was our mistake—and it's caused you a lot of worry and pain. But we're ready now to start building you a new one. And we have some good news: according to Tom's most recent calculations, your rate of decline is slower than we feared.

"We have something in common, you and I: I too was ill, but I got a second wind—and so will you."

"Can you fix my core in time?" said Blues. "I mean, before March. If you can't, Nurtech's going to try, and Dr. Wily said... well, I'm not sure what he meant, but..."

"Yes, Tom told me what he said." Judith let out an exasperated sigh. "Albert's behavior lately has been... erratic, to say the least. We don't understand it... it's like he's trying to scare you. He's always enjoyed making jokes at your expense, and perhaps he thinks it's funny, but now he's gone too far." She took a deep breath. "Tom and I... well, we've had enough. Now that Albert's part in your testing is finished, we think it'd be better if he didn't come around as much anymore."

Blues first reacted to this news with a sense of relief—but it was immediately followed by a vague unease, and finally the urge to protest.

"But if you don't finish before March, then..."

"We're going to finish before March, even without Albert's help." Judith gave him a forceful nod, and he knew that she considered the matter closed.

He opened his mouth to object, but just then he remembered something else he wanted to ask. "Who's Takayama?" he said.

"Oh, him? He's the company's financial director. And he also happens to be the subject of another longstanding scientific investigation of ours." Her expression lightened, and deep creases appeared at the corners of her eyes. "We've concluded that _you're_ human enough, but even after decades of careful observation, we still can't decide whether he is."

He smiled.

Judith placed her hands on his shoulders. "Anyway, we said we'd get you out of this room, didn't we? This isn't your kind of place." She cast a quick glance down at her watch. "We still have some time. Come on, Blues. Let's go outside for some fresh air."

Yuichi kicked at one of the demolished magazines on the floor. "There's nothing good to read here, anyway," he said.

Blues laughed.

* * *

Escorted by Mr. Harada and two other guards, they ventured out into the parking lot. The enormity of the snow took Blues by surprise. The path from the door to the pavement was flanked by walls of white as tall as he was, and he had the dizzying impression of everything around him looking the same. For the moment the snow had stopped, but the clouds were heavy with the promise of more to come later.

"This is a new record for Shizuoka," Judith said. "Unusual. It's been snowing nonstop, Tom said, since the morning you... well, since a week ago."

Going outside hadn't been part of the original plan of the day, so Dr. Light hadn't sent his coat along with him—but Yuichi had removed his own jacket and handed it to him without a second thought. "It's nothing," he said. "I'm from up north, and I'm used to much worse than this." Blues continued to shiver, and Judith reached out and touched him on the elbow. "Are you still cold, dear?" she said.

He nodded. Judith pulled off his tie, rolled it up, and asked him to put it in his pocket. Then she removed the bright yellow scarf from her neck and wrapped it around his. It was soft, and smelled faintly of flowers. He looked downward and fingered at the seams.

"Thanks," he said.

"Well, you need something bright and cheery to counter your name, don't you?" She gave him a self-satisfied smile. "Why don't you keep it? It's not my color, anyway... makes me look washed out... especially since... Oh, nevermind."

Blues smiled. Just then, a novel thought entered his head. "Dr. Sorensen, Mr. Nishikawa," he said, "do you have a netphone? I want to take a picture here, with you."

Judith's eyes widened a little. "You do?" she said. "Well, all right. Of course. Mr. Harada, could you please...?"

It was the first time Blues had asked anyone to take his photograph. As Judith and Yuichi pressed in close on either side of him, and they all looked toward Mr. Harada holding the netphone, he found himself smiling a genuine smile—but it was tinged with a sincere feeling of malice. Although he really liked these people, he admitted to himself that he was angry, and wanted them to know it—if not now, then at least at some distant point in the future.

He was aware of how the photo would look to their eyes: the squat brutalism of Nurtech's laboratory looming behind them, the sardonic smile on his face, and the context which the two of them would know all too well.

He had a perfect memory, and no need to keep mementos. He wanted to take that picture not so that he would remember that day—but so that they would never be allowed to forget.

They spent a few more minutes breathing the crisp air. Blues noticed Judith glancing down at her watch at regular intervals, although he didn't know why. At one point, she steered him by the elbow toward one section of the curb and stared off into the distance. Yuichi and Mr. Harada followed silently behind.

"Here," she said. "The mountains look different from this angle, don't you think?"

Blues wasn't sure what he was supposed to be looking for. "Actually," he said, "I don't think..."

"It's almost time to go in," said Yuichi, looking a bit mystified, and Mr. Harada gestured across the parking lot toward the door.

"No. We still have two minutes left," Judith said, squinting her eyes at the horizon. "More or less."

Two minutes came and passed. The parking lot was silent and still except for the occasional crunch of snow under their shifting feet.

At last, Judith let out a trembling sigh. "Well, let`s go in," she said.

Blues stared up at her furrowed brow, wondering why she looked so disappointed.

"Is something wrong, Dr. Sorensen?" he said.

She shook her head and smiled, but her eyes were glassy. "No, nothing," she answered, and put her arm around his shoulder. "Well, Blues, it`s time for you to finish up your tests—then we`ll take you home, get started on that new power core of yours, and let you get on with your life. That doesn`t sound so bad, does it?"

"No... it doesn`t," he said.

Under Mr. Harada's watch, they led him inside. Another pair of security guards waited in silence as they stomped bits of ice from their snow-crusted shoes. Judith, her hair still wild from the wind, told the guards to wait, then stooped down and embraced Blues one more time. When she'd finally pulled herself away, Yuichi leaned in, gave him an exuberant handshake, and wished him good luck. With the yellow scarf still wrapped around his neck, Blues turned and followed the guards down the hallway. He was only a little afraid—that is, until he looked back and saw Judith's silhouette, black against the gray January sun, press herself against the wall with her face in her hands, and Yuichi, looking hesitant and confused, reaching out to console her.

It would be many years before Blues would learn the reason for Judith`s strange behavior: the car that was supposed to arrive at Nurtech's parking lot at the preappointed time, but didn't, into which she would have shoved Blues before leaping in herself.

She had thought of everything, even the man she`d paid to sit in the back seat and assist her, if necessary, in forcing Blues into shutdown mode. There was the large suitcase in the trunk into which they would have folded him, and the second getaway car waiting beside the road to receive them on the way to the airport. There was the money which had been slipped into all the right pockets at Nurtech`s security gate and at airports on either side of the world.

And then there was Dr. Light's part in the plan: he was waiting at home with his netphone in hand for Judith`s message that Blues was safe, and that he could now destroy the prize that Nurtech had been promised under contract. Tom had steeled himself for the consequences of their betrayal, which included the near-guarantee of a jail sentence. After the long wait for the day, at last, when he would be free to join Judith on the other side of the world, they would have spent the time necessary to design Blues's new core the way they wanted—they knew all along, as well as Nurtech did, that it couldn`t be done within two months.

And what about Yuichi? He knew nothing and would have been left behind at the curb—he had a young family, after all.

It was a shot in the dark. Judith`s plan was the best they could manage now, but it had a glaring flaw: if one link in the chain went missing, the whole thing would come apart. Neither she, nor Tom, would ever know where the collapse originated: one missed message somewhere, or one participant who`d gotten cold feet. But come apart it did—and although it would have been spectacular in its execution, in failure it manifested as nothing more than the silence of a snow-filled parking lot.

And so Blues remained fixed on his current trajectory, unaware how far Tom and Judith had been willing to go, in the eleventh hour, to push him off of it.

One conspicuous element missing from the plan was Albert. He'd been deliberately left out, but even if he'd known, he wouldn't have cared: he already had a plan of of his own.

* * *

The guards led Blues through an unfamiliar corridor, and as they turned a corner he spied Morita and Ogata talking in low tones with a man in a suit.

"Take him in," said the man, and pointed to a nearby door.

So in he was pulled. When the guards had left, and Blues had heard the key turning in the outside lock, he found himself alone in a room bisected by a long glass wall. There was a pair of speakers mounted in two corners, and a camera which aimed down from the ceiling at the spot where he assumed he was supposed to sit. Wanting to stay out of its glare for as long as he could, he lingered instead in a corner.

He looked up at the clock on the wall and waited. Five minutes passed, then ten. A minor ache in his stomach grew, climaxed, and then subsided. Finally, Morita peeked her head in through the door on the opposite side of the glass, looking a little frazzled.

"Um, sorry about this," she said. "Remember Mr. Ando?... of course you do. Well, after he met you this morning, he said he was going out for a cigarette and never came back. The guys at the front security gate said they saw him drive away. It seems he got a bit spooked."

"Bet you never realized you were so scary, did you?" called the disembodied voice of Ogata from behind her.

"...No, I didn't," Blues said.

"Ando was supposed to talk with you this afternoon," said Morita, "but Nurtech's asked Ogata and me to fill in for him, and we need time to prepare. Not to mention... we've decided to make a few last-minute changes to the next test. Do you need anything while you wait?"

"A magazine to read, perhaps?" Ogata said. "Oh, right, we heard you destroyed them all."

Blues laughed.

"Morita, did we get that on...?" There was a pause, after which Ogata emerged from behind the door in a huff. "Damn it, kid, get in front of the camera before you laugh or do anything interesting, all right? I'd like to leave here on time today. Ever heard of jet lag before? Nice scarf, by the way.

"Anyway, see those speakers up there?" He pointed to the two corners of the room on his side of the wall. "We just got someone to rig them up during the lunch hour, and we haven't tried them out yet. So if you'll just bear with us..." He turned toward the open door. "It's that button, Mr. Harada. Okay, here we go... Turn it up a little more... More..."

Blues heard a gentle violin melody, faint at first but gradually increasing in volume, which he recognized as the "Largo" of Vivaldi's "Winter." He raised his head.

"All right, it looks like we're in business." Ogata peered at Blues with a lopsided smile. "Actually, now that I think of it, according to Dr. Light's notes you prefer the Romantics. Want me to put on something different?"

"No," said Blues, as a feeling of gratitude settled over him. "This is fine."

"Oh, and what about...?" Morita vanished into the hallway. Blues heard her voice speaking to someone outside the room, but the words were drowned out by the music. Moments later, the door on Blues's side opened. Mr. Harada came in holding Blues's generator, which he set down promptly on the floor before leaving.

Astonished, Blues bent down and scooped it up into his arms. Immediately, he felt some of his anxiety dissipate.

"So that's what a robot's security blanket looks like," said Ogata with a wistful smile.

They left and closed the door behind them, but the music continued to play. Still out of the camera's range, Blues lay down on the floor with the generator nestled under his arm, wrapped in Judith's scarf and the warmth of the music, and closed his eyes.

"Thank you," he said to an empty room.

They returned a few minutes later and seated themselves in two plastic chairs in front of the wall.

"Thanks for waiting," Morita said. She pointed to the empty chair on Blues's side. "Come and join us."

Hesitantly, Blues pushed himself to his feet. With his eyes up at the camera, and still clutching his generator to his chest, he wandered toward the chair and sat down.

"First, I think we need to explain ourselves." Morita cleared her throat. "This morning, we studied your bodily movements, your sensation and perception... fairly straightforward stuff. The afternoon session was supposed to belong to Ando, and he was supposed to get to the heart of the matter—your feelings. He'd planned to elicit some emotional responses from you, and he had the freedom to do that however he liked. Not all of his methods would have been in accordance with the ethical standards of his profession, and not all of your responses would have been positive—which is why there's a glass wall between us.

"When Ogata and I were asked to fill in for Ando, our first impulse was to follow his original plan. But on second thought, we realized that some of his ideas lacked... imagination... especially related to a certain kind of emotional response in particular..."

"By the way," said Ogata, "if we have to pretend to be your shrinks all afternoon—not saying you need one, of course—then we're going to do it right. The first step, if I understand it correctly, is to make the client comfortable, isn't it?" He turned to Mr. Harada standing in the doorway, and nodded. Mr. Harada turned and left the room, and moments later Blues heard a mechanical humming that was barely audible. Blues didn't realize what had happened until he noticed Morita pointing upwards—and he followed her eyes to the camera, whose lens was now closed and red blinking light had gone dark.

Blues stared at Morita and Ogata in amazement. "You mean," he said, "you don't need..."

"No, we don't," said Ogata. "We're not going to review the contents of this session later. Not since our minds have already been made up anyway."

"Well, let's press on," Morita said. "There are many possible ways this phase of the test could have unfolded." She cast her eyes up toward the ceiling, blinking rapidly. "But we realized that, since we have complete power over you while you're here, this would be a test of _our_ humanity as much as it is of yours.

"Perhaps the way we've chosen to proceed won't be as effective as what Ando had in mind... But, absent any hard evidence to the contrary, we'd prefer to err on the side of kindness..."

She signaled to Mr. Harada, who in turn leaned out the door and signaled to someone unseen in the hallway. The door on Blues's side of the room opened and in came two security guards, each hauling a heavy canvas bag. They set the bags on the floor at his feet and retreated; Blues stared downward, a little afraid, and excited, by the prospect of what was inside.

"Go on," said Ogata. "Take a look."

Blues leaned down and opened one of the bags, and his hand brushed against tightly-bound paper. Immediately, he knew what it was. He yanked out one of the objects and flipped greedily through the pages. He saw a procession of colorful and stylized images: the maple tree in the garden, a sugi in the forest, a pair of crows perched on the wall, hydragneas, the quiet living room illuminated by the andon lamp at night, the side of Dr. Light's face drawn from memory, looking lost in thought... his own face as it appeared in the bathroom mirror...

"This... this is..."

"During the lunch hour, we found these sitting in a cardboard box in the library, and figured they had to be yours," said Ogata. "We asked Takayama about them—he was a little steamed that we'd been poking around in there—but in the end he admitted the company doesn't need them anymore. Anyway, we thought you'd appreciate getting them back."

"Your pictures are beautiful, you know," said Morita. "They show a good sense of perspective and shading."

"They do?" Blues felt the odd sensation of his throat closing up. "Thank you. Yes, I do appreciate..."

He found himself suddenly unable to speak. He heard a gentle pattering sound and noticed a drop of liquid had fallen onto one of the open pages, smudging the shaded outline of a leaf. By impulse he looked up toward the ceiling, suspecting a leak, and it was only after a second drop had fallen that he reached up, touched his eyes, and realized they were wet.

Through his blurred vision, he saw Morita and Ogata staring at him with awestruck faces. Then they seemed to come back to themselves, and they self-consciously looked away.

Morita rose to her feet and hurried toward Mr. Harada at the door. "Let me cross over to his side," she said.

"I'm afraid I can't do that," said Mr. Harada, and held up his arms.

"But he's all alone over there. He has no one to..."

"Since his outburst during lunch, it seems he's earned a... reputation, and the company has become concerned about liability. You're not to have any physical contact for the rest of the day."

"That's ridiculous," Morita said, looking flustered. "How dare you tell me I can't... It's unnatural... I've got a kid of my own, you know."

"Morita," Ogata said, and hunched over with his chin in his hands. "That's no kid."

Blues was unable to see her reaction, but he felt the weight of her silence. He put his sketchbook down on the floor and wiped at his eyes.

A few quiet minutes passed. Blues raised his head and saw the two scientists staring at him with looks of sympathy.

"Well," he said, "what's next?"

Ogata let out a long sigh. "As far as we're concerned, your assessment is finished," he said. "There's nothing more we need you to do. But... we've got to fill the next couple of hours up with something. We can play anything you like through those speakers up there... or..."

Morita smiled. "...Perhaps, if you don't mind, you could tell us a little about your art."

They spent the rest of the afternoon in comfortable conversation. With the camera shut off, and the impression that he'd passed his assessment already a given, Blues felt happy just to be in the moment. For the first time that day, he allowed himself to be excited about being in a new place, meeting new people—something he'd long wished for the opportunity to do—and for just a short while he even forgot that the door behind him was locked from the outside.

He told them about his love for playing the piano, the various kinds of birds he saw in the garden, and the fond sights and smells of Dr. Light's house—and he was surprised that they were interested in everything he said, despite the fact that his realm of experience was so small. As the time passed, he found himself divulging more than he'd thought he would: the way he suspected Dr. Light sometimes let him win at cards, the terror he'd felt during last summer's earthquake, and how he was asked to hide in his bedroom once a month when the gardeners came over to tend to Dr. Light's trees, and peeked out at them through the tiniest crack between the curtains.

They, in turn, told him about their lives, but stuck mostly to the topics of their work and their chidren. Ogata entertained him with stories about living abroad in America, and Blues, his imagination on fire, felt the unbridled pull of a newfound wanderlust. Once in a while the pain in his stomach flared, and he cringed—and each time, Morita glanced back at Mr. Harada with a look that was almost hateful.

Toward the end of their allotted time together, Blues noticed that their mood began to falter. They cast questioning looks at each other, and glanced over their shoulders at the door. Finally, they nodded in unison, ever so slightly—and all of a sudden Ogata grabbed at his chest and gasped for air.

"Mr. Harada!" Morita jumped to her feet. "Quick. There's something wrong with him."

Blues rushed forward to the wall, not knowing what was happening. Ogata slumped forward in his chair, taking deep, wheezing breaths. Mr. Harada ran up behind him.

"I'm having... an asthma attack," Ogata said at last. "My inhaler... it's in the break room... next to my wallet... Hurry..."

Mr. Harada turned and dashed out of the room. As soon as he had disappeared, Ogata began to breathe normally again. He rose to his feet, and he and Morita drew near to the wall.

"Now that he's gone," Ogata said, with urgency in his voice, "there's something we need to talk about with you, Blues... in private."

"This is important," said Morita, and pressed her lips together. "The reason we were poking around in the library in the first place is because we were looking for information about... well... Do you have any idea why Nurtech commissioned Dr. Light and his team to create you?"

The fear in her eyes startled Blues, and he turned to Ogata—only to find Ogata locked in the same look of unease.

"I... was hoping someone here could tell me that," Blues said, and crossed his arms.

Morita cast an anxious glance at Ogata and shook her head. "Nurtech is planning to profit from you, or from the technology that made you. So, how are they going to do it?"

"Haven't your creators told you anything?" said Ogata. "Or, maybe, there's something you've overheard?"

"Well, I..." Blues hesitated, but Ogata stepped forward and banged his palm against the glass.

"Come on, kid," he said with a nervous look back toward the door. "If you have something to say, you'd better spit it out. We don't have much time."

"Dr. Wily once said that why I'm here is the 'dreaded question.'" Blues said, afraid to stop talking. "They've kept it a secret from me all my life... so I can only guess it must be something terrible. That's all I know, I swear."

Ogata cast another anxious glance backwards. "We'd better get to the point, kid. The point is that we're going to fail you, and we hope you don't take it personally."

Blues stared up at Ogata, unable to believe what he had just heard. "But, don't you think..."

"Listen, Blues." Ogata drew closer and heaved a sigh. "You know Nurtech has asked Morita and I whether we think you could pass for human. Well, you pass. But we don't want to give the company our 'yea' verdict—not if it amounts to a tacit endorsement of..." He took a towel out of his pocket and wiped a few beads of sweat from his forehead. "Well, we'd like to know exactly what it is we'd be endorsing first.

"What I'm saying is, we're concerned about the ethics of this whole thing."

"We came here today for curiosity's sake more than anything else," said Morita. "Also, we did it out of respect for Dr. Light, whom we've both admired for a long time. It turns out we were blindsided by what our visit here was going to _mean_.

"We don't have a clue what's really going on in that artificial brain of yours." Morita forced a smile. "We only know how your behavior _affected_ us, and affect us it did.

"The two of us, we've made our careers in the hard sciences, and most of the time our work is far removed from the messy world of human feelings—but..." She turned to Ogata, who seemed to have something he wanted to say. "Well, go on."

Ogata cleared his throat. "Some of the private projects I've worked on over in Pittsburgh... it's not nice stuff: weapons to be used in wars, technology designed to kill people... Usually, it doesn't mean anything more to me than a kind of logic puzzle to be solved and a paycheck at the end of it. We humans will find ways to justify almost anything, you know... Still, I have my limits..."

"Me too." Morita fixed her gaze on Blues. "But it's so easy for us humans to forget our better natures when there's something to be gained..."

"One hard truth about the world," said Ogata, "is that the weak get devoured. That's why we have laws to protect children, women, minorities..." He glanced up toward the direction of the camera on Blues's side of the room and became visibly agitated. "But there are no laws—not yet, anyway—to protect someone like _you_."

"What we're saying is that they're going to exploit you," said Morita. "Be careful, and keep your eyes open... to the extent, at least, that you have any control over these matters... We think Ando ran off not because he was frightened of you, but because he realized these people are dangerous..."

Just then the door on Blues's side of the room opened. Two guards came through, took him by the arms, and pulled him back from the glass partition.

"Time to go," one of them said.

"No—wait..." Blues lunged back toward the wall, where Morita and Ogata looked on helplessly with their palms pressed against the glass—but the guards overpowered him, lifted him off his feet, and hurried him toward the door.

As he was being carried backwards, a guard entered the other side of the room and herded Morita and Ogata away—they looked back with fear in their eyes—and for just a moment, a pang of empathy for their fate made Blues forget all about his own troubles. He remembered the tabloid reporter accosted by Dr. Light last spring, and the discussion about how Takayama would most likely procure the man's silence—and he wondered how far the company would go to earn the "yea verdict" that the two scientists were determined to deny them.

The next few minutes passed by in a daze. When Blues had lost the will to resist, the guards set him down on the floor to walk by himself, and he followed them into an empty staff room where Judith and Yuichi were waiting. Someone entered behind him carrying his sketchbooks and generator.

Judith got up and wrapped her arms around him, but he noticed that her shoulders were sagging, and her grip was weak.

"It's over," she said. "As soon as we hear the result, Yuichi and I can take you home."

She was one of the last people on earth he wanted to see just then: like Dr. Light, an obfuscator masked by love and kindness—but her embrace felt good, and in spite of himself he leaned in and pressed his face deeper into her chest. Suddenly she let out a gasp, took a step backwards, and looked down at her blouse, where two small water stains had formed.

"Dr. Sorensen," Yuichi said. "Is that...?"

"Blues," she said, came in close, and scrutinized his face. It was then that he noticed his eyes were wet.

"Blues, you're—oh, my God!"

* * *

They sat next to each other in silence, motionless except for the movement of one of their heads turning up every so often toward the clock on the wall. As they waited, a shallow wave of pain came to Blues and crested. Yuichi noticed him wincing and reached out to squeeze his hand, but Judith, her arms crossed, oblivious for the moment, continued to stare ahead at nothing.

Blues was still disturbed by the change that had come over her when they had gone outside, and he stared up at her face hoping to see something that would give him any insight into her feelings. When she realized he was looking at her, however, she straightened, relaxed her shoulders, and put on an accommodating smile.

There was a knock at the door, and a Nurtech employee called Judith out into the hallway. She returned minutes later with the same wide-eyed stare, and although she continued to smile, when she spoke her voice sounded defeated rather than victorious.

"You passed," she said to Blues. "Apparently, with flying colors."

* * *

_The "counting horse" mentioned by Judith at the beginning of this chapter is a reference to Clever Hans. Clever Hans indeed was "clever"-carefully attuned to the body language of his trainer-but he was no mathemetician. _


	11. Just Along For the Ride

It was already dark when they emerged again into the parking lot, and the drifts of freshly shoveled snow were ghostly against the sky. Blues looked back in hopes of catching a final glimpse of Morita and Ogata—but he knew he wouldn't. He shivered. Judith gave him a gentle squeeze on the shoulder, but her presence was no comfort.

When he saw where they were going, he stopped in his tracks. Two cars manned by Nurtech employees, their headlights beaming, were waiting a short distance from Judith's, one on either side.

"Dr. Sorensen..."

"It's all right, Blues."

"Why are they here?"

"They're going to escort us home," said Judith. "You were supposed to go with them—see the tinted windows?-but Yuichi and I negotiated an alternative. You're riding with us." She opened the back door and waved him in, and Yuichi climbed in behind. "But they have one condition: no one can see you. They're going to watch us to make sure we comply."

Blues already knew what she was going to say next. As he followed her instructions and settled down onto the floor of the car with his head beside Yuichi's ankles, he tried to pretend that this was a new experience for him.

"Sorry about this," said Yuichi, as he peered down over his knees with a wry smile. "If it's any consolation, it's too dark to see any scenery."

"How much longer do I have to hide?" Blues said. "Since my testing is finished, I thought..."

"It's only until tomorrow," Judith said as she lowered herself into the front seat. "Nurtech's going to hold a press conference in the afternoon to introduce you to the world—you've got to be there, I'm sorry to say, but you don't have to speak if you don't want to, and Tom will be right by your side."

It took a few moments for this information to sink in, but once he realized what it all meant he let out a gasp. "Dr. Sorensen... you mean I'm going to be on netscreen?"

"Yes," she said, "and there are going to be a lot of cameras pointed at you." She sighed. "Not your cup of tea, I know. But we've got no choice." She twisted around in her seat to face him, and managed a hopeful smile. "At least, once it's over, you can start living in the open... Tom's been keeping a list of the places you want to go, and he's going to make good on his promise." She paused, and her eyes wandered down to his stomach and then away to the side. "Keep in mind, though... Now that we're going to start repairing your core in earnest, you'll have to spend most of the next couple of months asleep. You understand that, don't you?"

Hesitantly, Blues nodded. "That's... what I figured."

"Right," said Judith. "But I think we have enough time to take you to one or two of the spots on your list first." Her face lightened. "And there's something else to look forward to in your near future... your birthday present."

But Blues barely heard the last few words she spoke. His mind was being pushed back and forth by the many troubled thoughts jostling for his attention: the unknown fates of Morita and Ogata, Albert's sudden expulsion from his life, tomorrow's press conference, his dread at the idea of soon being reunited with Dr. Light, and the imminence of the operation to fix his core—the implications of which, he realized, he didn't yet fully understand.

"Blues?"

"Yes?"

"Are you okay?"

He didn't answer.

Judith gave him a sympathetic nod, then turned around in her seat. "Okay or not, we've got to get you home," she said.

They drove away in silence through the night. After the glow of Nurtech's parking lot passed out of view, Blues saw nothing but black through the window above his feet except for the occasional glare of a streetlight. With each turn, he was pushed in one direction or another. He imagined the two Nurtech cars following behind for a purpose he still didn't know. The pain in his stomach grew until it was too powerful to ignore, and in a fit of nervous energy he wrapped his fingers around Judith's scarf.

During the earliest years of his life, his perception of time was stretched by the scarcity of his experiences: a week seemed to him like an incredibly long time, and a month was an eternity. Just then he realized, for the first time, that the procedure to replace his core—which Dr. Wily had described as difficult and risky—was actually going to happen, and soon.

There was so little in his life over which he had any control. As he grasped the extent of his helplessness, he let out another gasp.

"Dr. Sorensen," he said, "I'm scared."

"Don't be," said Judith. "The worst is already over."

But Blues thought her voice sounded wooden.

After a few minutes of tense silence, the car was lit up by the red glow of a traffic light, and they came to a stop. Just then, spurred on by blind id and instinct, Blues leapt up, grabbed his generator, and lunged at the door.

But Judith was faster. The car jerked forward, knocking Blues off his feet, and he landed on top of Yuichi. Judith let out a scream.

"Yuichi!"

Yuichi flung his arms around him, and with firm but gentle hands wrestled him down onto the seat.

"Let go-"

"Blues, get your head down below the window," said Judith.

"No..."

"I said, get your head down, dammit—and don't forget who's watching."

Startled by the authority in her voice and bested by Yuichi's strength, Blues shrank back to the floor of the car. He saw Yuichi's darkened face peering down at him, reassuring rather than angry, and moments later the man bent forward, reached out, and clasped him by the hand.

"Hey, it's all right," he said. "Stay with us. There's nothing out there but snow and trees."

"I... don't care," Blues said, trembling. "I want out, Mr. Nishikawa... Not just out of the car, I mean—out of everything."

"You panicked, that's all. You just need to breathe. Breathe—that would help him, right, Dr. Sorensen?"

"Honestly, I don't know," Judith said, "but it can't hurt." Then she sucked in a deep intake of air, as if trying it out for herself. She exhaled a long sigh. "Blues, these are Nurtech's rules, not ours," she said. "This is their game. We play by their rules. If we do what they ask, then when all this is over we get to keep you and care for you however we damn well please. No more hiding and no more tests.

"Please understand: everything we've done this past year, Tom and I... The purpose was to fulfill our part of the contract... to earn you your freedom, and a chance at happiness...

"We were still young when the project began. Catherine's vision... it consumed us. We gave up our youth, our lives. Twenty years. All that work..." She took another deep breath, and her lower jaw quivered. "I swear to you, we didn't do it all—nevermind your name—to bring a being into the world who'd be destined to be frightened and unhappy. We did it for life—bold new life—your life—and joy, and love... It was a vote of confidence in the future, in humanity..."

Blues blinked up at Judith, wanting more than anything to believe her. She was veiled in darkness, and all he could see was a silhouette of her face and the flutter of movement in her jaw—except for once every ten seconds or so, when a streetlight raced past and lit up the interior of the car for an instant. In these half-moments of illumination he saw her furrowed brow, tightly pressed lips, and misty eyes—and knew she was unconsoled by her own words.

"It wasn't all for nothing. I promise," she said, as another streetlight shot by, "as long as Tom and I are alive, at least, you are going to be the happiest, most loved creature on the face of this..."

"Wait, Dr. Sorensen, please." The words shot out of Blues like a kind of gasp. "Please." He'd just remembered something Albert had said to him the day he'd learned about his failing power core, and the words took on a special urgency. "_There`s an... agreement, you see, between Takayama and us. We`ll give him what he wants, and he`ll give us what we want."_

Judith glanced back at him. "Yes, Blues?"

"If Nurtech isn't going to keep me," he said, "then what are they going to get, anyway?"

Everything was quiet except for the sound of Judith slowly exhaling. Blues looked up at Yuichi, but Yuichi bowed his head and closed his eyes.

"Dr. Sorensen, Mr. Nishikawa..." Disturbed by their silence, he yanked at Yuichi's hand. "Tell me. Why is Nurtech following us home? Is it really just to make sure nobody sees me? Isn't there something else?"

Yuichi opened his eyes, but kept his gaze glued to the window. "When we get to Dr. Light's house," he said, "there's going to be... a transaction. Nurtech will let you come back into the house with us, and then..."

"And then, you're going to give them something?"

"Well, yes, Dr. Light will..."

"Yuichi," said Judith in a curt voice, and Yuichi fell silent.

"What's he going to give them?" Blues said.

But Yuichi didn't answer. He peered down, gave Blues an apologetic look, and glanced away. But as he turned to stare out the window, his eyes widened. "Dr. Sorensen," he said. "You won't believe this, but it looks like we've got company."

Blues couldn't see anything out the window from his vantage point on the floor, but he heard the rush of another car passing by at high speed, and watched as Judith's jaw dropped open.

"Shit, shit, shit."

"Why is he?..." said Yuichi. "I thought Dr. Light asked him not to visit today."

"Hell if I know."

"Who are you talking about?" said Blues. But as soon as he had spoken the words, the answer rose up to the surface of his mind: _It's Dr. Wily... Dr. Wily's coming... _He didn't know whether to be excited or frightened.

"Nevermind," Judith said in a shaking voice. "Just relax. You're almost home."

"You still haven't answered my question." Blues said, and was surprised by the anger in his own voice. "What's Dr. Light going to give Nurtech?"

"Dr. Sorensen," said Yuichi, "can't I...?"

There was no reply from the driver's seat. Blues stared up at the side of Judith's expressionless face, and a wave of terror washed over him. "Why won't you answer me?" he said. "Mr. Nishikawa..."

"Don't, Yuichi," Judith said in a hoarse voice. "You weren't there—you were just a boy when we drew up that contract. The burden is Tom's, and mine... and Albert's..."

For the next few moments, all Blues heard was the low humming of the engine. He was aware of his body pressed up against Yuichi's feet, and of the man's hand hanging down, firmly grasping his-but he had never felt so alone.

"Somebody," he said, "answer me."

Judith cupped a hand over her mouth, and Blues realized the reason she hadn't answered was not because she was refusing, but because she was unable.

The car slowed and came to a stop. With one final deep breath, Judith unfastened her seat belt and removed the key from the ignition. Yuichi pulled Blues up into the seat beside him. Through the rear window of the car, Blues saw the snow just as it began coming down outside in sheets, stark against the black sky—and, looming about twenty meters behind, two pairs of disembodied headlights beaming toward him.

"Well, we're here," said Judith. She was staring at the headlights through her driver's side mirror, her face washed out by a pall of utter dread. "Come with us, Blues. It's time to give Nurtech what they want—and for you to learn what that is."

They exited the car. Blues could have tried to run, but he felt beaten into passivity, and his feet wouldn't cooperate. With Yuichi on one side and Judith on the other, he allowed himself to be led toward the house. Within the short distance, the snow soaked through their clothes and hair. Wearing only his dress shirt and trousers—and Judith's scarf—Blues remarked to himself that he'd never felt so cold. He looked back—the two Nurtech cars remained where they were, silent and waiting. Ahead, he saw Dr. Wily's silver Peugeot parked beside the house, and out of the corner of his eye he noticed Judith glaring at it with a look of contempt.

"Be brave," she said, as she reached for the front door.

But Blues couldn't tell whether she'd addressed the words to him, or to herself.


	12. The Gift

As Blues came up from the foyer into the house, he heard a faintly whistled tune: the chain of descending thirds from the beginning of Brahms's 4th symphony. With halting steps, he followed the sound to its source. Dr. Wily was sitting on the living room floor with his lips pursed, his back against the wall, and his legs splayed out in front of him. He cradled a whiskey glass in his hands. The bottle beside him was almost empty.

Dr. Light was leaning onto the low table with his chin in his hands, head down. A second glass sat in front of him, containing just a few bits of half-melted ice. When he glanced up at Blues, he seemed to shrink deeper into himself. Next to his elbow was a white envelope, embellished with a little bow fashioned from gold ribbon and bearing Blues's name.

"Welcome home, Blues," said Albert.

Blues didn't answer. Behind Dr. Light's pale and cowering figure, big brutal flakes of snow dropped into the garden. Hypnotized by the sight and wishing he was somewhere else, he froze. When at last he came back to himself, he realized he was staring into Dr. Light's shame-filled eyes and squeezing the sides of his generator with a force that made his fingers sore.

Judith dropped her handbag in the doorway, rushed into the room, and crouched beside Tom on the floor. He turned to meet her, and the two of them shared an embrace as Albert looked on with mild amusement.

For the first time, Blues had the notion that the two of them were somehow more than colleagues, or even good friends—but the exact nature of that "more than" was a facet of human life which he would never fully understand, not having experienced it himself. He didn't know then about their failed plan to save him, and that they'd actually hoped not to meet again for years. At the time, however, he was disturbed that, despite the apparent strength with which Dr. Light clung onto Judith, he didn't look at all happy to see her.

"Tom..."

Dr. Light was the first to loosen his grip. When he leaned back and his face came again into view, he was staring off to the side with a faraway look.

"Tom," said Judith again, with distress in her voice. "It went well. Blues is a little shaken up, but he says his evaluators were kind... they were the best we could have hoped for..."

Slowly, Dr. Light turned. "What I've put you through, Blues..." he said, and his voice cracked. "I'm sorry..."

But Blues, without thinking, took a step backward.

Judith squeezed Tom on the shoulder. "He's angry, of course," she said. "Give it time."

"Time?" said Dr. Wily, and crossed his arms. "They haven't got any."

Judith shot him a dirty look.

But Albert was unperturbed. "Hi, Yuichi. How's family life treating you?"

"...It's all right." Yuichi shifted uneasily where he stood. His youth, and his subordinate position, made him a fifth wheel. He had nothing to do with the awkward atmosphere of the room, so he remained where he thought he could best be of use: in the doorway at Blues's side.

"Should I ask Blues to make you some tea?"

Tom gave Albert a hard stare. Yuichi, on whom the reference was lost, glanced sideways at Blues and shook his head.

"No... No, thank you."

"Well, I'm glad to see you in good health again, Judith," Dr. Wily said with a bittersweet grin. "Too bad I can't say the same for all of us—right, Blues?"

"Albert," Judith said, "you're..."

"_Not supposed to be here?_" said Albert, with a great upward lift of his eyebrows. "What a strange idea. I have every right to be here as you do.

"Did the two of you really think it would be so easy to get rid of me? I know you asked me not to visit tonight, but I didn't want to miss anything... _important._"

He took a sip of whiskey, set the glass down on the floor, and looked up at Blues. "Well, did you pass, young man?"

Hesitantly, Blues nodded.

"You've been drinking," said Judith.

"True, although not as much as he has." Albert pointed at Tom. He gave his own whisky glass a fond little shake, and the ice cubes clinked together. "I know my limits, at least. This is an occasion that calls for a high degree of... coherence.

"I came here to give the kid his birthday present, of course.

"You're going to like what's in that envelope, Blues," he said, and glanced down at the object on the table, "but I got you something even better: the frank and honest answer to every question you've ever had."

Tom cast an anxious look in Blues's direction. "Albert..."

"Well, go on," said Dr. Wily. "Ask me why you're here."

Albert's calm and affable half-smile was wildly out of place among the other dumbstruck faces in the room. Wide-eyed, Tom shook his head—but Blues, terrified though he was, was determined to defy him.

"Why am I here?" he said.

"Well, that's complicated." Albert crossed his arms and cast a nod toward Catherine's shrine. "You may have heard by now that she had something to do with it," he said, "but it wouldn't be fair to blame the whole thing on her.

"It's true that she had some interesting theories about consciousness, and that she wanted us to help her build you. She was there at the beginning—and it's really too bad for you that she died before we finished any of your sensory inputs." His gaze floated up to the ceiling, and he let out a low sigh—and Tom glared at him with narrowed eyes. "After that, all we had left was that dream of hers.

"But something happened to that dream on its journey from Catherine's beautiful mind into manifest reality: we ran out of money. The rough first iteration of your CPU sat on Tom's desk gathering dust for a few months while our grant proposals were turned down one after another, and that should have been the end of you—but that's when Nurtech came forward. They offered us their generosity and their patience—and we didn't think it through. Especially Tom here. He was so desperate to keep a piece of Catherine alive that he barely read the contract before signing—nevermind the fine print.

"Then again, it's not like you owe your existence to one momentary lapse in judgment. We had nearly twenty long years to mull things over, and could have turned back any time—but we kept at it anyway, and even ended up activating you. It was _fun, _after all. Oh, what a wonderful dream it was."

With a wistful sigh, he raised his glass toward Blues. Then he took another drink, set the glass down on the table, and turned to Tom. "Well," he said, "that wasn't so bad, was it? I imagine you would have said something similar.

"But now we come to the next question..."

Judith raised her hands. "Albert, please..."

"...Which ought to follow logically from the first."

Blues stepped forward. "What does Nurtech want now?" he said.

"Right." Albert winked. "This question has some urgency to it, doesn't it?-considering that they're waiting outside to collect it as we speak. Well, all that money they gave us—you probably know by now that they didn't do it out of the goodness of their hearts..."

Just then Judith rose to her feet, and with wild gesticulations let loose a flurry of speech which to Blues was incomprehensible. Albert, listening with his arms still crossed, raised his eyebrows at her.

"You know I love it when you speak French, Judy," he said, "but I'm going to answer you in a manner I see fit—namely, in one of his preset languages." He nodded toward Blues. "So, you say he's a child, and that no decent parent troubles a child with information about scary things beyond his control.

"But you would have had to tell him something tonight. How, exactly, were you going to try to nice it up for him?"

"Yuichi," said Judith, and clenched her teeth together, "take Blues into another room. Tom, Albert and I—we need to talk about this first in _private_."

Blues gritted his teeth and backed away. "_Don't_," he said. "I'm not going anywhere. I want to hear it—I want to know everything."

Yuichi looked at Judith, and then at Blues, and remained frozen where he stood, apparently torn.

"Well, I disagree with you, Judith," said Albert. "He's not a child. No one does to children what Nurtech did to him this week while he was unconscious—at least, not under the approving eyes of the law."

Blues looked down at his wrinkled shirt, and tried to imagine his own unconscious body wheeled through Nurtech's laboratory on a stretcher, undressed and opened up by unknown hands. "What did they do?" he said, at that moment feeling angry, and ashamed, and very small.

"Research." Dr. Wily let out a sigh. "Linking our schematics with realia. It was their first step toward figuring out how to replicate your design, and a framework of knowledge they can now build upon to make any future modifications they desire... perhaps, eventually, to facilitate mass production...

"This is only your body I'm talking about." He paused. "They now have the shell, but they still need the ghost: I mean, the code with which we programmed your mind. That which makes you _you_. Without it, the shell is useless.

"Tom keeps the sole copy of it in that room in the basement you've never been allowed to enter—and when this conversation is over, he's going to give it to the people waiting outside."

"You mean..." said Blues, and felt his own eyes widen, "they're going to make more... of me?"

"Um, not exactly," Albert said with a half-smirk. "Entertaining as it is to have you around, there's just not much profit to be made from consumptive artists like you.

"What Nurtech probably has in mind is going to have weapons attached... or tits—as good as artificial can get, at least."

"Albert, you're disgusting," said Judith.

"Woman, don't play dumb. I know you have an _imagination_.

"Your successors, Blues—however Nurtech plans to market them—are going to be slaves."

Blues stared down at his generator, struggling to make sense of Dr. Wily's words. He had no clue what it meant to make a profit, or what "tits" had to do with anything, or why artificial ones were somehow not as good as real ones. At last his mind settled on "slaves," the only word which had any bearing on his experience. To be a slave meant to be forced to obey, and he was certain he wouldn't want to be one—or for anyone else to be one, either.

"Slaves?"

With a wry smile, Albert lifted the bottle of whiskey from the floor, unscrewed the cap, and with a flourish poured the remainder into Tom's empty glass. "Terrible, isn't it?"

Silently, Dr. Light slumped forward toward the table and put his face down in his hands. Beside him, Judith ran her trembling fingers through her matted hair and shook her head.

"We... don't know that for certain," she said.

"That's right," said Dr. Wily, and gave her an incredulous look. "We _don't know_! Blues, the deal we made with Nurtech years ago gives them the rights to the technology. And they won't tell us how they plan to use it. But if making a profit is their goal, then we can hypothesize, can't we?

"It's true you've been... difficult to handle, and your successors will be too, but it doesn't matter. Human spirits can be broken.

"The whole business is rotten. All of it. Sometimes, the only thing you can do is laugh."

Blues raised his head. "And me..."

"Well, I suppose a little self-absorption is natural. Not to worry. The contract guarantees we can keep the prototype—that's you, by the way- although not without a few caveats."

"What if you just don't give the code to them?"

"That's one of the caveats. In that case, they'd take the next best thing: you." He cast a weary glance over at Tom. "Rest assured, he has no intention of letting that happen."

Just then, they heard a ringing from Dr. Light's pocket. Tom jumped at the sound, then with a look of silent dread pulled out his netphone and held it up to his ear.

"Yes..." he said in a low voice. "Of course. I'll be there in just a minute." Then he stared down at his hands as he placed the netphone onto the table.

"Getting impatient out there, are they?" said Albert.

"Dr. Light," said Blues, and was surprised by the conviction in his own voice. "Don't give it to them."

"That's very noble of you, Blues," Dr. Wily said, "but they're going to get that code one way or another—either directly from Tom's hands tonight, or by extracting it manually from your CPU.

"But it's time for another question." He cleared his throat. "Ask me whether your core flaw can really be fixed."

"Albert, no..." In a burst of exasperation, Judith pulled at Dr. Light's arm. "Tom," she said. "Help us. Get up. Stop thinking about the future. He's still here, and he needs you. Fight for him."

Dr. Light cast a furtive glance in Blues's direction, and then turned his head down toward his lap. "It's over, Judith," he said. "I haven't got any fight left in me."

"Blues," said Dr. Wily, "what she's fighting for is to keep you ignorant and calm—and easier to control.

"'The future...', 'it's over...,' They're referring to the fact that your memory of this conversation—along with every other memory you've ever formed..."

"Albert, don't..."

"...Is soon going to be wiped out... probably, right after you enjoy what's in that envelope."

Blues stared at Albert, then in turn at each of the other dumbstruck faces in front of him, and clutched his generator more tightly against his chest.

"You're a horrible man," Judith said.

"If telling the truth makes me horrible, then I'm guilty as charged."

"It's horrible to tell him all this when there's nothing he can do."

"She's right." In the midst of the silence in the room, Dr. Wily pierced Blues with a long stare. Then his eyes darted off to the left, toward the direction of the door to the lab at the end of the hall. "There's nothing you can do. _Nothing_."

Just a few weeks ago, Blues might have interpreted his words in their literal sense, but his world since then had been colored by shades of increasing subtlety. He was now able to detect the tone of irony in Dr. Wily's voice, and he knew unequivocally that there indeed was _something_. And as he pieced together what that _something_ was, the box in his hands began to rattle.

"The answer, Blues," Dr. Wily continued, "is that your core can be fixed—and indeed it will be, very soon—but you won't survive the procedure."

Yuichi reached out to put a warm hand on Blues's shoulder, but Blues yanked it away.

"Sorry, Blues," said Yuichi, as he crossed his arms and looked down at his feet.

Since the afternoon in November when Dr. Wily had first told him he probably couldn't be saved, Blues had suffered quietly under the weight of that knowledge, all the while holding out hope, fueled by Dr. Light's words, that it was a lie. Now, as he watched Tom's terrified face turn in his direction, in his mind's eye Blues saw the man's recent behavior—the sighs, the blinked away tears, and the breakdown at Mt. Fuji—in its proper context, and his heart dropped.

"Dr. Light..."

"It's not just a matter of taking out the faulty part and putting in a better one," said Albert. "We'd also have to redesign the components that interface with it, and some of those components are responsible for your temperament, your memory storage... And unless we can come through with a miracle cure, which would take a lot more time and work, you won't be the same when we're finished.

"The situation was already bleak enough before Nurtech decided to throw a wrench into the works with their 'March first' deadline. They've waited twenty years already, they're eager to see a return on their investment, and your core flaw is now quite an inconvenience for them. If the deadline passes and we're forced to give you up to their technicians, they're not going to be delicate. As soon as they discover that the quickest way to fix your core would require snuffing out your little life, they'll do it without batting an eyelash.

"Theoretically, I suppose it could be possible for us to repair your core while keeping _you _intact," Albert said, "but not within two months. You might as well ask us to build a ladder to the moon.

"Kid, you're a carp on a cutting board." He widened his eyes. "That means you're doomed."

Blues stared down at Tom and Judith where they huddled together on the tatami floor. "But you said..."

"They lied because the truth would hurt you, or make you do something impulsive and stupid that would compromise the contract." Albert sighed. "They're not bad people. They're _dreamers, _and now they're having a hard time accepting that the dream is over."

Blues felt his mind being pulled back to the morning he had awakened one year ago, and heard the first words Dr. Light had spoken to him.

"You've been sleeping," he repeated, in a voice that seemed to come from outside of himself.

Albert cast him a knowing smile. "I played along with their game, too. I was good at it. But there's a point at which the act became unsustainable. This is about respect. I, for one, believe you have a right to know what you're in for."

"So I'm going to... die?"

"Die?" said Albert. "That's an interesting question. I was never any good at that metaphysical stuff. We're not sure what you're going to experience, exactly—whether the person who wakes up in your body will bear any resemblance to the you of a year ago, or if it'll be someone new entirely.

"But I suppose you could look on the bright side. There are plenty of humans—some of which are right here in this room—who'd be grateful for the chance to do it all over again.

"Truth be told, your core flaw was a rather convenient development for them: since it isn't possible for _them_ to take back their mistakes, at least they can clear away your memories of them. You'll never have to know how foolish they were..."

Dr. Light raised his head. "Stop, Albert..."

"...And in spite of everything, at least they still get to keep their robot son—even if it's not going to be you..."

"Stop." Blues was startled by the percussive _bang _of Tom's fist as it slammed down onto the table. "You've gone too far." He cast a fearful look up at Blues. "That was a lie. What he just said—the thought has never crossed my mind. It was a _lie_."

He turned back toward Dr. Wily with narrowed eyes. "Now, you shut up and listen to me," he said. "Appointing yourself a truth-teller, a necessary bearer of bad news: that's one thing. I hate it, but I _get_ it. What I can't understand... is why you've been trying to drive a wedge between him and me since day one.

"For you to imply that my feelings for him are anything short of..." His voice cracked, and he looked away. "Hurt him with the truth if you must—I can't stop you now—but if he's only got a little time left, I'll be damned if he doesn't spend it knowing how much he was loved.

"And you were." He locked eyes with Blues—and Blues, realizing his eyes were wet, blinked and looked away. "_Are._

"Blues, there's something you need to know about him. His involvement in your life so far has been... greatly out of proportion to his contribution to the project to build you. Your code—of the four of us in this room, he probably understands it the least." He turned toward Albert with rage in his eyes. "Over the years, I lost count of the number of times I had to fix his coding errors—careless amateur mistakes which could have sabotaged the entire project. To think I put up with it all this time for the sake of our friendship...

"He's not the genius he likes to think he is. He's a hack."

Dr. Wily leaned back against the wall and let out a low whistle. Blues didn't understand what had just happened—and he didn't care. He was only thinking about how he didn't want to let Dr. Light see him cry. He blinked again and turned his head.

"So, Albert," said Tom. "Why are you doing this? Is it jealousy?"

Albert sighed. "On the contrary, friend," he said, "I think it's the other way around."

"What would I have to be jealous of?" He pointed a shaking finger at Blues. "I gave him _life_."

"Death, too, by the looks of it." Albert put on a meek smile. "But at least you took lots of pictures."

Just then the doorbell chimed. Blues jerked his head around toward the noise and, suddenly aware how close he was to the front door, shrank away into the living room. As soon as the sound had faded, Dr. Light's phone began to ring.

"Go ahead, Tom," said Dr. Wily. "Don't keep them waiting."

Tom stared down at his netphone with haunted eyes. Beside him, Judith bowed her head.

"Remember what you stand to gain from this," said Albert. "You're going to be famous—even more than you are now. And perhaps before long, when Judith tires of you, you can put in an order to Nurtech for something to make the nights a little less lonely..."

Tom, his face contorted with rage, heaved himself to his feet and lunged across the table. Judith jumped to her feet, and Yuichi ran forward. There was shouting, the sound of striking hands, the sight of Albert trying to shield himself from Tom's blows, and Judith's screams—and for a split second Dr. Wily glanced in Blues's direction and mouthed the word "go," and Blues saw his chance.

Still clutching his generator, he turned on his heels and ran. Seconds later he heard a pair of feet sprinting down the hall behind him.

"Hey, Blues," called Yuichi in a shaking voice. "What are you doing?"

But Yuichi, fast though he was, was too late. Blues flung open the door to the lab, yanked it shut behind him, and turned the lock.

A novel sound escaped him—a sob—as he bounded down the stairs. He came to a stop in front of the red jugs of kerosene, and knew what he had to do.


	13. Up in Smoke

"Blues?" Yuichi's muffled voice called out from the other side of the basement door. "Are you all right?... No, of course not. I really can't blame you for wanting to hide down there..."

Blues didn't answer. He set his generator on the stainless steel table, wiped at his eyes, then reached down and twisted the cap from one of the kerosene jugs.

If he was going to die soon anyway—or if the self he'd painstakingly formed over the course of his life was going to be erased, which to him amounted to the same thing—then he figured he might as well get it over with now and destroy the code while he was at it.

From the top of the stairs he heard nervous knocking—Yuichi's—and the man's shouts for help.

"Dr. Light, Dr. Sorensen!... He ran into the lab and locked the door. I'm sorry... I couldn't stop him in time."

Then low voices speaking to each other, followed by louder knocking.

"Blues," said the voice of Judith. "I know you're frightened... Perhaps it's too late to prevent Nurtech from getting the code... but despite what Albert said, Tom and I haven't given up on saving _you_. There's still time... with a little ingenuity and sacrifice, we could..."

"Are you still trying that bullshit on him?" said the very faint and distant voice of Albert.

It was ignored.

"Move over, Judy, would you? Blues," Dr. Light's baritone, hesitant and tremulous, called out. "I know it all sounds bad... and it is." There was a pause. "You deserve better than this...

"I led the project to create you, and I pushed for that contract with Nurtech. I was the one who engineered your power core. And I always thought, if something were to go wrong with your design, it would have been a flaw in your code that would have left you less than human... I never expected it would be a simple hardware component... such a small thing... and it was my fault."

"Albert was right. I lied to you... but I did it to protect you. If the only way to keep you alive was to... erase _you_, of course I wouldn't have told you. I... didn't want you to suffer..."

Blues's only reply was to screw off the cap of one of the kerosene jugs and pour out its contents onto the floor. Dr. Light's words were drowned out by the the _glug, glug_ of the kerosene as it exited the container, and the cold splatter of the liquid hitting against the concrete. The stuff smelled noxious. Some of it soaked through his house slippers and chilled his toes, and he let out a gasp. _Ignore it_, he thought. _This won't take long_. He watched for a few seconds with grim satisfaction as the widening puddle spread beneath the locked door.

"Blues, listen..." Tom's voice continued. "There was a time before your activation, and a little while after, when I entertained the notion of being a God. I was full of myself . What you needed all along was... a father...

"I let you down."

Blues stifled a sob and turned back to his work. If he had any hope of destroying the contents of the next room along with himself, he knew, he would need more materials to ignite. His body seemed to move of its own accord as he splashed his way toward the bookcase beside Dr. Light's desk, then ripped through volumes of programming manuals, dusty stacks of Tom's patent certificates rolled up in their cardboard tubing, and yellowed hard copies of research publications bound with clips. As he pulled a few books from the shelf, two photographs of Tom and Catherine together slid out onto the floor—Blues felt bad about that—but in the end they too went into the pile he amassed in front of the locked room.

All the while, Dr. Light was still speaking to him. "...But, Blues, I'm afraid of what Nurtech's going to do if they have to break this door down... These are dangerous people..."

"Listen to him, kid!" called Albert. "No truer words have ever been spoken."

"Shut up!" shouted Tom and Judith in unison.

They hadn't done it on purpose, but the syncronicity of their reply was comical in a way, Blues thought. He let out a little laugh, and for a half-second even forgot what he was doing... What was he doing, again? _Oh, right_... He was unbuttoning his shirt. His hands began to quiver, and soon they were trembling so hard that he gave up in frustration. If this was too difficult for him, then the delicate operation to disconnect his pain receptors was surely a lost cause too. But perhaps he was steady enough... just steady enough to light a match. He wiped his face with his shaking hands.

_ Well, nevermind about the pain, _he thought_. At least Dr. Wily said it would be quick... _

As he ran again toward the kerosene jugs on panicked feet, by chance he banged his knee against the wall—and a memory came to him of a particularly hard collision between his shin and the low table he'd suffered on his second day of life, when his movements had still been clumsy. The force had knocked him gasping to the floor, and moments later he'd heard Dr. Light's heavy footsteps bolting up the hall. When Tom's face had come into view, he'd seemed to have a guilty look.

"Here?" he'd said as he rubbed at Blues's smarting leg with his big gentle hands. "That feeling... it's awful, I know... but it's meant to keep you from damaging yourself, and to allow you to be capable of empathy..." He'd paused, staring downward, and his voice softened. "Still, even if it was necessary... Well, I'm sorry, all the same..."

He'd never told Dr. Light how grateful he'd felt for his calm and patient presence during a beginning otherwise marked by so much confusion. Perhaps there was still time...

_No._ _It's too late._..

Just then he heard a percussive banging against the front door at the end of the hall—followed by the eerily cheery _ding-dong, ding-dong_ of the doorchime.

"Blues," called Dr. Light's voice, strained and higher in pitch. "Come out... please... you have to..."

Blues hoisted a second jug of kerosene above his head—this one was meant for himself—but a piercing scream startled him, and the weight slid out of his hands and landed with a great _thud_ on the floor.

"No—don't do it!"

He raised his head. It was _her _again—and he'd never been more overjoyed to hear her voice.

"I'm not gonna let you give up so easily," the voice said. "So come on, Blues, think! Look behind you."

He looked—the lab's one and only window in the far corner of the room, up near the ceiling above the spare desk, was large enough for him to squeeze through. He could reach it if he climbed a chair... and it led to a side of the house unenclosed by the garden wall and out of view, he thought, of Nurtech's cars. Beyond it was a path into the forest, a vast place to hide... and whatever lonely struggle of a life awaited him there until his core had reached the end of its span, it had to be better, at least, than dying like this.

"Kalinka, you're a genius," he said. He grabbed his generator from the table, wadded up a piece of paper from Dr. Light's desk, and retrieved the box of matches from its drawer.

"Tom, I'm scared..." said the muffled voice of Judith from upstairs. "That noise a moment ago... What's he doing down there, anyway?"

Dr. Light didn't answer.

"I have a bad feeling... Go get the skeleton key, Tom. Hurry!"

There was no turning back now. Blues stacked a chair on top of the desk below the window and scrambled up. Then, with his generator still tucked under one arm, he lit a match, set the crumpled ball of paper alight, and flung it across the room. A flame leapt up from the puddle of kerosene, widened, and within seconds engulfed the pile of books and documents on the floor.

There was a great _whoosh_, and a wave of heat washed over him. The corner of the lab closest to the stairs became bright and crackling, while dark smoke blurred out everything else. Blues stared at the sight, unable to believe what he had just done.

"You know, Blues, I don't feel right about this," said Kalinka's voice, a bit chiding. "You should give yourself more credit. You imagining me here, helping you escape... but I wasn't there. I had nothing to do with it."

"But it makes me happy," he said, as he slid open the window. "It just does. Please: tell me I've got to get out of here alive."

"Oh, all right." She put on her most irritable affectation. "Blues, if you don't get out of there alive, I'll never forgive you!"

He laughed. She was so funny. Smart, too—smarter than he'd ever be... but if he had any hope of meeting her some day, he'd have to do what she asked.

He felt the heat of the flames on his back as he turned again toward the open window. But instead of a ground-level view of the outside, he saw nothing but a white rectangle of packed snow. He thrust his arms into it—to his relief it was fresh and soft, and a little avalanche poured in in front of him. Teetering on the edge of the chair, with his generator still tucked under one arm, he hoisted himself up. He kicked the chair out from behind him, and with all the strength he could muster pulled his body through and burrowed to the surface.

The blast of cold air, and the darkness that greeted him, were exhilarating. He saw the faint glow from the headlights of Nurtech's cars far to his left, but he was well out of sight of anyone who might still be inside. Yes, he had a chance after all. He pulled the window shut behind him, clutched the generator to his chest, trudged through knee-deep snow along the stone wall toward the back of the house, rounded the corner, and made a break for the cover of the trees—as fast as his legs could carry him. Though soaked to the skin with melted snow, reeling with a sudden flash of pain in his stomach, at least—he fought back the urge to shout with joy—at least, for now, he was _alive_.

It was then that he realized the problem with his escape plan: the trail of deep footprints in the snow he'd left behind. He steeled himself for a chase—but just as he reached the perimeter of the woods, and the pitch-black of the forest loomed in front, he heard distant screams, and he hesitated, positioned himself behind a tree, and looked back toward the house. The intensity of the snowfall had trickled down to a fine powder, which gave him an unobstructed view.

A sinister-looking plume of smoke rose up from the roof. As Blues watched, Dr. Wily appeared from around the corner carrying Catherine's urn. The man paused, looking down at the footprints and the hole in the snow in front of the window with an expression of deep confusion—or was it disappointment?-but the moment was short-lived. He put the urn down and, with a few quick, wide deliberate steps, Albert covered the prints in the snow with his own. Then he returned to the window, and with a few brisk kicks—he grunted with pain—shattered a hole in the glass. He crouched down to slide open the window, which was of course unlocked, and a burst of grey smoke billowed out. He took a few limping steps away, crumpled into the snow, and shouted curses at his aching foot.

"Son of a bitch... Tom!"

Dr. Light came into view, followed by Judith, Yuichi, and six men—Nurtech employees—whom Blues had never seen before.

"Tom, over here," said Albert. "Since the staircase is on fire, this is the kid's only chance. I searched around for a rock, but in the end I had to break my damn toes to get the window open."

Tom and Judith each let out a gasp and huddled in front of the opening.

"Blues!" shouted Judith. "Blues, come here! If you can hear us, come to the window!"

Dr. Light crouched down on his stomach and stuck his head inside, calling out Blues's name, but of course there was no answer.

When at last he pulled himself away coughing, and Yuichi had helped him to his feet, one of Nurtech's men approached him.

"Dr. Light," he said, a bit hesitant, "are you responsible for this?"

"Of course not," snapped Tom. "Blues is still in there... My boy—he's still in there!"

"Tom," Judith said, her panic rising, "The nearest fire department is a twenty minute drive away. My God, what are we going to do?"

Just then Yuichi, who up until then had been silent, must have recognized that he was the only person around small, agile, and willing enough to fit through the window—and he tore off his coat, ran to the opening, and slid inside feet-first. As his head disappeared into a cloud of smoke, Judith's jaw dropped open.

"Yuichi!"

She and Tom shared a furtive glance and got down to their knees to watch, but Albert limped forward and pushed them out of the way.

"Yuichi, you stupid boy. Get back here!" he said. "Think about your wife and daughter, for Christ's sake."

Blues stared with growing apprehension as the seconds ticked by. At least a full minute passed, and the shouts of the three figures poised in front of the window became more frantic.

_If he doesn't come out_... Blues was gripped with terror, and was just about to step out from the cover of the trees and reveal himself when, at last, two greyish hands appeared clutching the bottom of the window frame.

"Come on, Yuichi, you idiot, up you go," said Albert, as he and Tom dragged his limp and blackened body through the opening.

Yuichi gasped for air. He crawled forward, then rolled onto his back in the snow, taking raspy labored breaths. Judith clutched him by the hand. She was crying.

"I'm sorry. I... couldn't..." he said, and was overcome with a fit of coughing.

Dr. Light, moaning, began to pace back and forth. He looked back in horror at the window, from which the smoke was now pouring out so thick that it was impossible to get close. Albert, sitting up in the snow, gingerly removed the shoe from his broken foot.

"Tom, let's be realistic here," he said. "Remember: the code is gone now. Even if Blues makes it out in one piece, those guys..." He tilted his head toward the six men hovering in silence a few meters' distance away. "No sooner than he'd wiped the soot from his face...They'd ferry him away to get his head opened up and taken apart. If he meets his end here now, this way... then perhaps it's for the best."

Tom, in a fit of displaced rage, ran forward and kicked Albert's injured foot. Albert cried out; then Tom sank down into the snow, pulled at his hair, and let out a long, low wail.

The sound cut into Blues like a knife. He was almost overcome with an impulse to burst out into the open and shout, _"Dr. Light, I'm here! I'm alive!"-_but he remembered Nurtech, and he put his free hand over his mouth and hunkered down more closely to the trunk of the tree.

He continued to watch as, a short while later, flames lapped at the basement window and all hope of his survival was lost. Judith, crouching on the ground with her arms tightly crossed, shrieked; Yuichi, sitting beside her, gazed listlessly up at the rising smoke between paroxysms of coughing. Tom leaned forward where he sat, his head bowed, and on his face was an odd pursed and wincing expression which Blues would not learn to recognize until years later: the greenish look of a human about to be sick.

Only Dr. Wily, silently nursing his broken foot, didn't appear particularly distraught.

_It's because he knows_, thought Blues. He shuddered at the idea, but then calmed himself with the reasoning that if Albert intended to tell anyone he was still alive, he would have done it by now.

Minutes passed. Fire and smoke engulfed the house. The noise was terrible: a low crackling roar. The tile roof groaned, buckled, and collapsed in on itself, sending a spiral of flame high into the air—and for the first time Blues realized the gravity of what he had done.

_I'm sorry_. Blues had destroyed the code and saved his own life, each a heroic feat in itself, but he felt terrible nonetheless. The oak table where Dr. Light used to let him win at cards, Catherine's piano and the soft upholstered armchair, the trees in the garden (collateral damage, helpless innocents—even now the pine closest to the house was sparking up, its branches twisting and curling): soon they'd all be nothing but skeletons and ash. Of all the beloved objects Dr. Light had accumulated over the course of his lifetime, only Catherine's remains, destroyed already by fire long ago, survived.

It was actually kind of funny, in a way, Blues thought.

It would be many years before Blues would learn what would have happened to him if Albert hadn't come that evening, if Blues had remained behind wrapped in the comfortable dream Dr. Light had woven for him. After Tom's obedient surrender of the copy of his source code to Nurtech, Blues would have been bidden to open the envelope on the table: inside he would have found four tickets (Albert was not welcome) to a performance of Beethoven's Ninth by the Vienna Philharmonic at the Bunka Kaikan the following day.

After he'd endured the press conference, they would have taken him there. And he would have loved every moment of it: first the view of passing scenery through the window during the two hour drive to Tokyo, then the bright lights of the city, throngs of curious people eager to meet him, and the rapture of the music.

That night, Dr. Light would have tucked Blues into his futon happy, at peace, distracted—at least for the moment—from the doubts that haunted him. Then, once Blues had settled into sleep mode, Tom would have—after a few minutes, perhaps, of anguished hand-wringing—lifted his shirt, opened him up, and shut him down.

Over the next weeks he, Judith, and Yuichi would have exhausted themselves in frantic exertion and sleepless nights to invent a "miracle cure," as Albert had called it; then at last, defeated, with Nurtech's deadline looming, they probably would have been forced to cut their losses, mourned the person Blues once was, and wiped him out themselves. It was a matter of _principle_ that they wouldn't let Nurtech do it—strangers who wouldn't have the first clue what they were destroying.

Blues, unconscious since January fourth, by design never would have learned his own fate.

And then, maybe, a while later, perhaps in early summer, while Nurtech was hard at work developing its new product line, Dr. Light and his colleagues would have greeted the birth of a new being through whose eyes, which had once been _Blues's_, Mt. Fuji would perhaps have looked a little different.

But it never came to pass. Blues was _alive_—although he didn't know for how much longer—alone and shivering behind a tree in his kerosene-soaked house slippers. He felt the pain in his stomach growing, and looked down with apprehension at the precious generator in his arms. Before its energy reserve was depleted, which would take a month or so, he'd have to find a way to charge it. Although he was already afraid then, he had no idea how much of a hard scramble his life would soon become.

A sudden cacophony above his head startled him: the sound of several crows cawing in unison and the creaking of lesser branches bending under the weight of hopping feet. He looked up, but couldn't see anything at all through the darkness. He knew the crows' caws had to mean something: it would make sense if only he could understand the signifiers. But he'd been calibrated for the human sphere; the world outside of it was alien and played by rules of its own.

Already, he had the vague notion that "Nature" was more than just a pretty picture to draw, and that a walk in the snow was pleasant only if one had a warm bed to come home to afterwards.

The wind picked up and blew a plume of acrid smoke in his direction. He heard a burst of flapping wings from the tree above; it was time for him to go too. He wiped his eyes with his scarf one last time, turned, and trudged into the night.

* * *

_Hi all. Kaguya here. Well, this marks the end of part 1. Part 2 will follow Blues as he wanders on his own, up until the time a... certain someone finds him._

_As always, thanks for reading._


	14. Part Two: Cold Comfort

_Well, here we are at the second part of this story. I think I should mention that this isn't meant to be a comprehensive AU Blues biography, just a peek at his first few years of life. And I feel it's fair to warn you that I'm going to follow many of the major canon plot points (at least, as well as I can piece them together), and that means the end of Part 2 is going to suck for Blues and you won't like it. But that's just how it is. Trust me..._

_Finally, a big THANK YOU to everyone who has left feedback! _

* * *

The cicadas came first. Their song started as a solitary, droning buzz—a precocious early riser—which was joined by a second, then a third, and at last so many that it was impossible to distinguish one from the other. Next was a warbler's whistle, bright and clear, and the low cooing of doves. Then crows began to caw, sparrows chattered, and a hawk screeched twice from somewhere high above.

From behind closed eyelids, Blues could already detect the pale grey light of early morning. He reached up and wiped the sweat from his forehead. Even before dawn it was already hot, and the air was heavy and thick.

Suddenly the window began to rattle, and the whole house shuddered and creaked around him. He jerked his eyes open, flipped over onto his stomach and buried his head beneath the pillow. With his free hand he grasped the mattress and held on as his body rocked back and forth. His thoughts turned to the leaky roof above. If only it would hold... He let out a muffled gasp, though he knew there was no one around to hear.

It was over in a matter of seconds. Crows squawked excitedly in the trees outside. For a few minutes after the shaking subsided he remained frozen where he was, clutching the pillow to his head and muttering words of comfort to himself. At last he dared to relax his fingers, ducked out from beneath the pillow, sat up on the mattress and opened his eyes.

The only difference he could discern about the room was a sprinkling of fine dust floating down from above. He squinted. The walls were just barely visible in the pre-dawn glow; above his head were the dark, twisted outlines of the calystegia which in the spring had pushed its way in through the permanently stuck-open window and now blanketed half the ceiling. A few purplish buds pursed toward the light, just beginning to open. It somehow consoled him to remember that plants couldn't feel fear, and he reached out and stroked the leaves of a wayward hanging vine.

He waited. The house shuddered a second time, more gently than before. A single crow cawed once in protest. Blues didn't bother to take cover, but with his left hand he pulled his generator up onto the mattress and against his chest while still clutching the calystegia with his right. The flowers swang back and forth from the ceiling.

He stared with stifled longing at the open door. The hallway appeared as a uniform black rectangle, empty and silent. It had been three years—perhaps, even to the day—since he'd last experienced an earthquake. On that morning, which now seemed like a lifetime ago, Dr. Light had charged through the door and flung himself over him, shushing his cries until the two of them, silent, had lain listening to the distant sound of one glass after another shattering onto the kitchen floor.

"Blues, it's over," he'd said after the shaking had stopped. Then, with a chuckle, added: "you can let go of me now."

It had taken the greater part of ten minutes for Dr. Light to pry Blues's hands away.

_Those days are long gone, stupid_, thought the Blues of 2064 to himself as he loosed his grip from the calystegia. _It's_ j_ust a little tremor, anyway. Nothing to be afraid of._

Nevertheless he was compelled, as he often was when he felt anxious, to count his collection of energy cells. He kept them in a brittle cardboard shoebox next to his mattress so that, if he happened to wake up frightened during the night, he could reach out, take one in his hand, and be assured by its gentle silvery glow. He picked up the box and cradled it between his legs. _One, two, three... _He turned each of the smooth, spherical orbs over in his fingers as he counted. This was ridiculous... Of course they were all there...

Nine. He needed four cells to fully charge his generator, with which he could then charge _himself _every two days for about a month—although within the past two years, he had to admit, that had decreased to more like three and a half weeks. Nine was a _good_ number. It meant an entire month ahead without worry, and another month after that to figure out how to replenish his supply.

Luckily for him, the cells charged motorbikes, garden tractors, and jet skis too—and the people of the small communities of rural Shizuoka rarely locked their garages and toolsheds. Stealing them was the easy part; the hard part was making the night-long voyage down from the mountain in perfect darkness and, once in town, ducking into the shadows to avoid being seen by the occasional homebound drunk. Dogs were a constant hazard too, as were the late-night patrolling policemen who, on one terrifying occasion, had chased after him demanding to know where his parents were.

Then there were the security cameras that blinked down from the lampposts at intersections and outside of banks. To protect himself, he wore a surgical mask and a pair of scratched and slightly bent sunglasses he'd salvaged from a public waste bin—and still, the thought of going anywhere near humans, even in the dead of night, even if he couldn't be recognized, filled him with dread.

Blues put the cells back into the box. Emboldened by the waxing light of the approaching dawn, he stood and dragged himself into the hallway. The floorboards creaked under his feet as he walked. He paused in front of his mirror, which had slid onto its side during the earthquake and was now lying face up on the floor. It was clouded with age and marred by a jagged crack in the middle, but it was the only mirror he had. He propped it back up against the wall, crouched on the floor and, squinting at his dim reflection, shook the dust from his hair.

Two bright brown eyes squinted back at him. It was a relief to see them: sometimes he was surprised to remember that he had a face at all. And just recently for reasons he couldn't understand, he'd sat on his knees gazing at it from different angles for hours at a time, searching for any feature that looked less than human.

Perhaps it was _too_ perfect: flawlessly symmetrical, untouched by acne or the little scars and bumps that humans, even young ones, accrue just from being in the world long enough. Or maybe there was something about the smoothness with which he turned his head, or moved his lips when he spoke—or was it only his imagination?-that betrayed a lack of the flitting spontaneity of the organic.

A flare of pain in his midsection interrupted his thoughts. He groaned. _Not this again_—his core flaw didn't have the decency to leave him alone even on mornings like this. He leaned back against the wall adjacent to the mirror and watched his own wincing face as he clutched at his stomach.

_A five_. He didn't know why he still bothered to rate them, but he'd kept up with the habit.

At last it was over. As he pushed himself to his feet his elbow brushed against the bathroom door, which creaked open halfway. Before pulling it shut again he caught a glimpse of the small mountain of broken, rotted, and unusable things he'd gathered there when he'd first discovered the house: gutted electronics, brown, curled magazines, prescription medications, moth-eaten women's clothing, rusted aluminum cans whose contents had expired in 2053. Flakes of plaster, shaken minutes ago from the sagging ceiling, had settled over everything like dirty snow.

* * *

His first few days on his own had been a panic-stricken blur. He didn't know which was worse: the biting cold from which he couldn't escape, the pitch-black of the forest at night, or his incessant compulsion to look over his shoulder. With the code gone, returning home meant death—and he was so miserable that he almost persuaded himself to turn back and submit to the fate Nurtech had in store for him.

Then he found an abandoned shrine, netted with the brown skeletons of dead vines and flanked by three rotted and leaning torii. It was a tiny structure, barely large enough for him to stretch out his legs, and it offered no protection from the cold—but at least it was dry, and it shielded him on three sides from the wind. He regained a little courage, slept fitfully, and decided he'd return there the following night, but the next morning he found the house.

It loomed behind the trees like a lion in wait. Blues's first impulse upon seeing it was to crouch behind a snow-filled bush for cover, but he soon realized with certainty that he was alone and reemerged. As he drew nearer, he noticed a clearing three meters wide that looped down the hill behind him, a cracked and potholed concrete river glazed over with ice: the ruins of an ancient road. A burst of freezing wind set Judith's scarf flying in front of him, and he let out a gasp. Desperate to get out of the cold, he made a break for the structure. It was solid beige, with a grey tiled roof, trimmed around the windows and doorframes with rotted wood. He pressed his face up against one of the windows, but could see nothing through the darkness. He investigated a large sliding glass door off to one side, but a pair of floor-length lace curtains, yellowed with age, concealed the interior. The front door, of course, was locked.

Then he spied the open window on the second story, and below it a rusty ladder half-buried in snow. He dug the ladder out, propped it against the wall, and in a kind of reverse-escape ambled up and spilled into the room on the other side.

It was mostly empty, except for a mildewed mattress on the floor and some faded textiles piled pell-mell in the open closet. A few large, clearly defined light spots stood out on the walls like inside-out shadows: the ghosts of furniture and picture frames long since removed.

In the remainder of the house he'd found a few things worth keeping: a rusty utility knife from the kitchen cabinet, a few unopened boxes of pencils, a pair of house slippers, a portable lantern which he couldn't yet charge, and small pieces of furniture that were filthy but otherwise usable. He quarantined the rest in the upstairs bathroom—he had no reason to go in there, anyway—and, in an attempt to make the place more bearable, swept the dust, dead cockroaches, and flakes of plaster out the front door.

At the time, he didn't know how long the house had been vacant. Only later in his life, when he'd applied to his memories of it his knowledge of the rate at which wallpaper fades and peels, the age of a roof before it begins to sag, and how long it takes exposed wood to dry and turn grey, would he feel confident enough to hazard a guess of twenty years, at least.

He spent his first few nights in the house sitting bolt upright on the mattress in pitch black, shivering inside a moldy blanket and jumping at the sound of the wind whistling through the trees. During the day he didn't know what to do with himself, and he paced back and forth with feverish impatience, watching the timbre of the light shift as afternoon faded into another evening. Fresh snow collected in the corners of the windows, ghostly against the deepening dark.

Oppressed by the decay around him, he nearly gave in to his despair—but he remembered what Dr. Light had said about his human need to attach meaning to experience, and he took his utility knife in hand and whittled one of his pencils until it was sharp. He spent the rest of the day sketching a life-sized camellia—much like the one he'd burned during his escape from the lab—on one of the papered walls. When he'd finished, he drew the maple, and after that the pines. They stretched from floor to ceiling, and he sculpted each individual leaf and needle with a devotion that was like love. The days melted into each other. His work overflowed into the hallway, the stairwell, the downstairs living room, and the kitchen. Sometimes he paused to sit on the floor and gaze up at his work, wiping his eyes. By the time every possible space was filled, the warblers were whistling and it was spring.

He settled into a routine that kept him alive and sane. He stole or salvaged the things he needed from town—and although it was dangerous work, he still had to find ways to entertain himself once it was over. During the day he explored the mountain and the areas that lay just beyond, and little by little pieced together a mental map dotted with useful landmarks.

He was careful to avoid the hiking trails that wended around the mountain. He was grateful for the bells some of the hikers wore on their packs to alert bears to their presence—they alerted _him_, too. Afraid though he was, sometimes, driven by a force he couldn't understand, he followed behind at a distance hoping to catch a glimpse of them. There was something about the timbre of their voices, even when they were too far away for him to comprehend, that filled him with yearning. He liked the good natured cackles of the middle aged women, and the silly old men when they burst amorously into song.

At night he lay on his back and, as moths fluttered in the moonlight coming in through the window, in his mind's eye his flipped through the hundreds of pages of sheet music he'd seen in his first year of life. Anything he'd ever set his eyes on was his forever—and once he'd found something he wanted, it was only a matter of visualizing the keyboard, all eighty-eight keys perfectly sized and proportioned, and placing his hands over the image. Without ever touching a real piano, he expanded his repertoire by hundreds of pieces.

In the winter he moved the mattress to the adjacent room with windows that could be shut, and to keep out draughts constructed a kind of makeshift tent around it from wooden chairs and moth-eaten rugs. Each night he crawled inside and huddled under a mountain of blankets until the urge to sleep released him from his misery. On especially cold nights, or whenever his loneliness brought him to tears, he heard her voice.

"Well, what did I say?"

"What I needed to hear."

"Oh, Blues."

Although he didn't realize it at the time, he was lucky not to be an organic being. He didn't require a constant supply of clean water and couldn't fall ill. No matter how much the cold tormented him in the winter, it couldn't kill him. In the summer, the mosquitos left him alone. If stung by hornets or centipedes, or bitten by snakes—the latter of which happened once when he lost his footing along the grassy slope of a ravine, and slid down feet-first onto a sunbathing mamushi—the pain was short lived, and their venom had no power to injure him. Having a perfect memory meant he could never get lost.

There were many little things he had the luxury of not worrying about—and a couple of big things he would have given anything to forget.

* * *

He took the canvas backpack from its place in the living room closet, climbed back up the stairs, and carefully slipped his generator and five of the nine energy cells inside. Then he slung the backpack over his shoulders and prepared to head out into the morning.

As usual, he had to brace his shoulder against the front door and give it a hard shove, but at last with a woody squeak it popped out of its frame. He was just about to take a step outside when he noticed a cicada flailing on its back on the ground below. On bent knee, he turned the creature right side up, grasped it by the wings—it squealed and flailed its legs—and set it down a meter's distance from the garden path. It took a few languid steps forward and came to a stop. Though he knew better, Blues liked to imagine its big black eyes were regarding him with a look of gratitude.

He felt sorry for the ones that were too feeble to fly any longer, and sorry too for the multitude of others only weeks or days away from the same fate. After long years of infancy underground, they emerged into the sun only at the twilight of their lives. He hated treading on one by accident: the screech of protest it let out just a fraction of a second too late, followed by the terrible crunch of its fragile exoskeleton collapsing under his foot—but more than that, he felt it was only right to let them live out the short remainder of their lives in peace. They reminded him a little of... well, of himself.

Few hikers came to the mountain in the heat of summer, but one could never be too careful. Holding on to the branches of trees for support, he lowered himself in a zigzag path down the steep side of the hill. Just to hear the sound of his own voice, he recited the names of the trees he passed. _Chamaecyparis obtusa, acer palmatum, lagerstroemia fauriei, rhododendron indicum, cryptomeria japonica. _He recognized them all like fond friends.

After an hour of walking he heard the roar of the water. He froze and cocked his ear toward the sound. The waterfall itself was nothing novel—he'd heard it dozens of times before. What he was listening for—what he hoped not to hear today—was the sound of human voices.

Almost certain he was alone, he crept along the ridge overlooking the falls. Below it was the rush of the river pouring over the cliff, and below that a dark blue pool flanked by sunbaked boulders. No one was there.

Finally allowing his excitement to take him over, he slid down the ridge on his back end, and climbed steadily down the rock face to the pool. He pulled off his shirt and stepped out of his drawstring shorts: precious things recovered from the riverbed a day's walking distance downstream. He hung them from a nearby low-hanging branch.

On bare feet, he walked crabwise along the cliff face toward the falls through a spray of cool mist. Just before he reached the water he hesitated.

_Go on, you idiot. Do it!_

He leapt forward into the stream and braced himself, gasping, against the force of the water. For half a minute the shock of cold was torture; then it gave way, as he'd known it would, to euphoria.

He laughed. Small acts of daring like this, the things which at first had seemed so difficult and uncomfortable, were exactly what made him feel the most alive.

He'd come here with serious intent: to revel in the final days of the dying summer. Winter was coming. One day, soon, his store of energy cells would be depleted. Tomorrow, anything could happen. Tomorrow his ailing core might give out, or another earthquake—a catastrophic tremor like the one that struck Shizuoka in 2033—could cause the roof to collapse and crush him while he slept.

The trees groaned and creaked, and the boulder beneath him shifted back and forth, but this time it was a welcome feeling: like being rocked comfortably by a giant hand. Willing himself not to be frightened, he leapt from the cliff feet first and into the pool below. With a big gulp of air filling his "lungs," he floated on the surface with his arms spread out beside him and gazed up at the cloudless sky through a gap in the canopy.

The fractured outline of the sun shape-shifted, partitioned by swaying branches. Pain gnawed at his stomach, but just for now he didn't mind.

The present was all he had. Might as well try and enjoy it.

* * *

When he returned home late in the afternoon, he found the cicada exactly where he'd left it—its little body flattened inside the ridged outline of an unfamiliar bootprint.


	15. Eviction Notice

_No._

Blues's eyes followed the trail of footprints winding up the garden path to the front of the house. A spattering of fresh mud soiled the doorstep, meaning whoever had gone inside hadn't bothered to take his boots off. Another trail led away from the door off to the right, and at first Blues was relieved to see it—until he realized that _that_ pair of prints was different from the first, and that his house had been visited by two intruders instead of one.

On silent feet he shrank back from the door as his hand reached for the rusted utility knife in his pocket. Slowly, he unfolded the blade.

_Don't panic. Maybe they're just hikers. Maybe they're lost. _

_ If they're lost, why would they split up?_

With dread, he remembered the four energy cells he'd left in the box in his bedroom upstairs. He felt a sudden urge to count the five remaining in his backpack, but he pushed the thought out of his mind. He couldn't do that here. Not while... Well, perhaps for now it would suffice to _imagine_ counting them. _One... two... three... four... five..._

Then his eyes happened to wander downwards to a point of red light trembling on his chest.

Still gripping his knife, he turned on his heels and ran. From his right came the sound of crunching leaves and feet pounding against earth. Then the front door of the house popped open behind him, and a second pair of beating footsteps joined the first.

"Dumbass," said a man's voice in a huff, "why didn't you fire?"

Blues didn't dare to look back. His backpack bobbed up and down behind him, and he reached behind with his one free hand to steady it as he wove through the trees.

"The little son of a bitch is _fast,_" said a second voice.

A piercing buzz whizzed past Blues's left ear, and he let out a gasp. He didn't know what kind of weapon the noise had come from, but he was sure he didn't want to be struck. As he ran, he shoved his knife back into his pocket: what good could it possibly do him now?

"Careful, there!" said the first voice. "Whatever you do, don't damage his _head._"

The forest ahead of him came into razor-sharp focus. He picked his way over fallen tree trunks and ambled over rocks. A split-second decision took him along the slope of a wide ravine, still muddy from the previous day's rain. He sidled along as quickly as he could with the toes of his shoes digging into the incline, and when he noticed too late that his slowed pace had made him an easier target, he realized he'd made a terrible mistake. Another buzz flew past his right arm, and this time he saw the flash of white light that followed it just before the shot was absorbed into the dirt. Only twenty or so paces away, the two men hunting him came into view, rigged with loaded packs, their heads swathed with bandanas.

"Hey," one of them called out, and Blues knew from the timbre of the man's voice that he was talking to him. "Looking for these?" As he clutched onto a tree for support, he reached into the side pocket of his pack and withdrew two of the missing energy cells. Then he held them out to Blues with a lopsided grin. Behind him, his partner, his suntanned face dripping with sweat, lifted something cylindrical and silver, glinting menacingly in the sun, which Blues recognized from Dr. Light's netscreen as the barrel of a plasma rifle.

Blues turned away and scrambled along the ridge. As he went, he watched the point of red light with rising panic as it trailed along the ground behind him. Then, with an outraged cry, he came to an abrupt halt: just ahead, the ridge gave way to a near-vertical drop. Below was the rocky bed of the stream, at least twenty meters down. With no way out but up, he grasped onto a pair of protruding tree roots and heaved himself toward the crest of the ridge. The soft, wet earth collapsed under his feet—and as he dangled there, momentarily helpless, another buzz and a flash of white light zoomed toward him and found its target just below his right knee.

The sheer force of the impact almost knocked him from his grip, and the initial shock sharpened into waves of jolting pain that shot out to his toes and the tips of his fingers. He shuddered and cried out, the men laughed, and more shots rang out all around him—and then, just when Blues was certain all was lost, someone let out a yelp, which was followed by the muddy "shhhhh" of a large and heavy object sliding uncontrollably down the face of the slope.

"Aw, shit," said the other voice.

It was the loveliest sound Blues had heard. Better even than Chopin. With renewed courage, and in spite of the burning in his leg, he pulled and kicked himself up onto the top of the ravine. Neither of the men were in his sights, nor was he any longer in theirs. Giddy with joy, he pushed himself to his feet and set off again at a pained and awkward limping run.

He didn't stop until the patches of sunlight faded from the forest floor and the droning of cicadas gave way to the hush of an encroaching evening. Putting his faith in his ears, he listened for any sound of footsteps, or voices—but heard none.

He sank down against the moss-covered trunk of a fallen sugi, rubbing at his aching leg. Though the pain had begun to subside, the spot was blackened by an oblong scorch mark ten centimeters or so wide. He figured his self-repair subroutine would take care of it within a few days—but he wasn't at ease. He ripped into his backpack, pulled out his remaining energy cells, and cradled them in his mud-coated hands. Fingers trembling, he counted.

_One, two, three, four, five... One, two, three, four, five..._

_You idiot. Of course there are five. And stop crying._

He needed to get his thoughts together. _"Breathe,"_ Yuichi had said to him once, without knowing whether it would help or not. For Blues, breathing was an automatic subroutine whose primary purpose was aesthetic. He could stop it if he wanted to without any harm done; he didn't need air except when he needed to talk. But it was worth a try.

Consciously, he drew in a large breath. He held it in for a few seconds, the way he'd seen Judith do it long ago on that horrible January night. Then he tried exhaling slowly—only to gasp it all out halfway through in exasperation. Why should he listen to Judith and Yuichi anyway? They'd been liars.

He realized his head felt heavy. He returned the energy cells to his backpack and pulled out his generator. With steadying fingers he lifted the hem of his faded black t-shirt and plugged the output into the hole in his navel. Immediately, he felt reassured by the warm, gentle surge to his core, and let his hands rest in his lap.

Blues didn't know who the two men had been, but he had an idea. Nurtech, at least, knew that he was alive. But how? Piece by piece, a convincing picture emerged. After more than two years of stealing energy cells from the communities at the base of the mountain, it was only a matter of time before someone took notice—and he was struck by the painful realization that he hadn't been nearly as careful as he'd once imagined.

He'd learned a few things about humanity during his first year of life: Dr. Light's netscreen, and Dr. Wily, had been eager teachers. He knew that humans did terrible things. That they even killed each other, sometimes just for fun. And if they couldn't manage to be kind to themselves, then what chance did _he_ have?

Chattering flocks of sparrows gathered in the branches. As darkness settled over the mountain, so did a deepening quiet. A chill breeze blew in, and Blues withdrew his yellow scarf from his backpack and wrapped it around his shoulders. At last he could hear nothing but the languid chirping of crickets and the soft shifting of dry leaves beneath him as he pulled his knees up to his chest. Not to be forgotten, a fresh ache gnawed at his stomach—and he wondered which, Nurtech or his dying power core—would get him first.

_ I'm okay_, he thought. _Really. I'll be fine._

He was lying to himself—but he now knew that lies were necessary once in a while, and he'd learned from the best.

Hedged in by darkness, he sought refuge in his mind. Faintly at first, the melody from Chopin's etude 10, part 3 came together in fits and starts. It grew clearer until the sound was so vivid that he could almost hear the echo of the notes through the trees. Then the pitch black of the forest in front of him was overlayed with the image of the camellia he'd drawn on his bedroom wall, which sprouted color and depth, and transfigured into the original just as it had once looked in Dr. Light's garden. Then, unbidden, a stream of sights and sounds from his former life flooded in. They faded, but in their place materialized an all-too-familiar bearded face, a pair of seemingly kind, wrinkle-rimmed eyes, and the faint scent of whiskey.

_If Nurtech knows I'm alive, then maybe he too..._ Involuntarily, the thought filled him with excitement—but it was short lived. He clenched his fists at his sides.

_You really are an idiot, you know that?_

"Oh, please," Kalinka said. "Stop it."

* * *

He rose at the first light of morning, damp with dew, and marched ahead in an aimless daze. With each step, his right leg ached, but he pressed on. He couldn't return to his house, and at any rate he was afraid to linger in any one place too long. His best hope now, he figured, was to put as much distance as he could between himself and his pursuers. Only later, after he was certain they'd lost his trail for good, could he begin the search for another place to live and new sources of energy cells. For now, he had to keep moving.

When the sun was high overhead, he passed through a grove of spreading azaleas at the base of the mountain which, a few months earlier, had been covered in bright purple flowers. They were at the outer limit of his circle: beyond them lay a world he'd never seen. With a silent goodbye to the forest behind him, he picked his way over the rocks jutting out from the shallow stream ahead, and abled up the side of the adjacent slope.

He trudged on. At the bottom of an embankment he found a ruined netphone screen-down in a puddle, but to his relief the rest of the afternoon passed without incident. He'd just decided to encamp for the night inside a pile of fallen and rotted tree trunks—a perfect place to hide—when a sudden flutter of movement at the edge of his peripheral vision pulled his eyes to his left.

Something dangled in the distant trees. At first Blues didn't know what he was looking at, and his initial impulse was to take cover—but as he watched, two kicking legs differentiated themselves, and the figure took on a human shape. Above the dark outline of an obviously human head was a black line stretching upward toward an overhanging tree branch. The line, and the figure under it, swang back and forth.

Blues had seen something like this before—or imagined it, although at the moment he couldn't place how. The sight pierced him with a dread he didn't comprehend—and, forgetting all about Nurtech, he broke into a run toward the hovering figure. As he went, he ripped the sunglasses from his shorts pocket and put them on, just in case. The vision in front of him, veiled in deeper darkness, took on an unreal quality. "Like a nightmare," a human like Kalinka might say.

Half a meter or so from the ground, a portly man in a rumpled suit hung by his neck from a rope. Legs flailing, he looked down at Blues with wild eyes and opened his mouth, but the only sound that escaped was a breathless gurgle: a broken plea for help.

It was horrible. Wincing from the pain in his leg, Blues clambered up the trunk of the tree gripping his rusted knife between his teeth. Then he sidled along the branch where the man's noose was tied, stooped down, and frantically sawed at the rope. Below him, the man continued to thrash. Blues thought he should say something—perhaps, some encouraging words.

"Hang in there," he called—and realized his mistake. "Sorry—I mean... that's not what I meant."

The last thread of rope gave way and the man collapsed to the ground with an earthy _thump_. Blues dropped the knife and swung down from the branch. He straddled himself over the man while tugging at the noose—it loosened, and suddenly to his relief the great chest beneath him heaved upward. With loud, labored, rasping breaths, the man rubbed at the red trough around his neck where the rope had been. Then, he fixed his gaze on Blues with fierce intensity, and with his other hand reached up, wrapped his fingers around Blues's scarf, and pulled him close.

Blues struggled. He pried at the man's fingers, but they didn't move. Alcohol-scented breath tickled his face, and Blues's discomfort gave way to rising panic—and he'd just started to glance around desperately for his knife when something small and squarish was shoved into his hands. The fingers released their grip, and Blues went careening backwards to the ground. When he'd steadied himself, he looked down at the object.

It was an ordinary leather wallet. The man, still splayed on the ground, took a deep breath.

"Open... it," he whispered.

Blues had no clue what he was going to see, but he did as he was asked. Inside one of the clear interior pockets was a photograph of a small, short-haired woman with glasses reclining on a picnic mat, with a laughing baby on her lap. Behind and above them, a shock of pink cherry blossoms spread out into the distance.

"Tell them... I still love them," said the man, and scratched lugubriously at a patch of beard stubble on his cheek. "And I'm sorry, y'know?" Tears formed in his eyes. He blinked forcefully, and a little stream spilled down the side of his face and onto his ear. "I'm sorry... I'm sorry..."

"I..." Blues stared down in bewilderment. The request didn't make sense. _But I got you down_, he thought.

"Listen," the man said. "My suicide note... on my netphone... but I lost it.

"So, please..." A glassy look settled over his eyes, and he glanced away. He let out a raspy moan. "Give them a ping... let them know where to find me, after... You got a netphone, don't you, kid?"

Blues didn't have the heart to say "no." "But I got you down," he vocalized instead, as if this were some kind of debate.

In reply, the man looked downward toward something lying on the ground next to the tree. Blues followed his gaze to a small, white bubble-wrap sheet emptied of all its pills, its plastic circular inlets gazing upwards like so many vacant eyes. Next to it, an opened bottle of shochu lay knocked over onto its side.

At last Blues understood. Panicked, he pushed himself to his feet. "Help!" he shouted through the trees, peering wildly in every direction. For the first time in his life, he would have been overjoyed to be discovered by a group of hikers—but he knew it was too late in the evening for that.

"Somebody, please."

The only answer that came was the indifferent buzzing of cicadas.

The dying man at his feet was quiet. Afraid of what he was going to see, Blues looked down.

The man's chest was barely moving, and his eyes stared intently upwards at something in the trees. Blues followed his gaze. There was nothing but branches and leaves.

In desperation, Blues shook the man by the shoulder. "What do I do?" he said. "How do I save you?"

The man didn't answer.

"Don't die," said Blues, pathetically.

Never in his life had he felt so useless. He knew a lot of things: the class, order, family, and species of every tree he encountered, and how to play "La Campanella" with his eyes closed—but he didn't have the first clue how to save a human who'd overdosed on sleeping pills, or even whether this particular human could be saved at all.

So he did what he could. He pushed his sunglasses upward onto his head, crouched down, and picked up the wallet. Then he pried the photograph of the woman and the baby from its sleeve and held it in front of the man's half-lidded eyes.

"I'll do it," he said. "I'm going to find them and tell them. I promise."

In reply, the man stared vacantly up at the photograph—but suddenly his eyes grew wide, and his pupils began to flash rapidly back and forth. His face softened, and Blues thought he'd seen the same expression somewhere before.

It was the way Dr. Light had looked whenever he talked about Catherine or tended to her shrine.

Just then Blues was seized by a flare of pain more terrible than anything in recent memory—an eight—and as he doubled over and squeezed his eyes shut, gripping at his stomach with his free hand, he struggled with all his might to keep the photograph in place.

When at last the worst had subsided, Blues straightened himself and looked down. The man, still staring at the picture, furrowed his brow, then pressed his lips together as if stifling a sob.

Then, as quickly as the spark of lucidity had appeared, it went out.

The man's chest stopped moving, and the look of anguish melted from his face. In its stead, a cold and sunken stillness settled over his features. His eyes remained open, but they were fixed in place, and dull: it was as if a light behind them had been shut off.

Blues looked away. So this was what it was like, he thought.

Hanging _and _sleeping pills. Out of the three ways Dr. Wily had said humans prefer to take their lives, this man had made use of _two_. After all he'd done to preserve his own life, Blues couldn't understand how someone could be so eager to throw away his own.

He opened the wallet again. Across from the sleeve where the photograph had been was an identification card tucked into a clear pocket. Next to a picture—taken obviously in happier times—of the man's face locked forever in a big-joweled smile, was the name "Hiroyuki Mitsui," and an address to a house in Suginami Ward, Tokyo.

Blues felt his body tense up. Tokyo was a massive city of millions: in one of the netscreen pictures he'd seen, it was a grey expanse dotted below with innumerable heads of black hair. The image had excited him once, but the thought of going there now, after years of hiding—and while Nurtech was hunting him—seemed like madness.

But he'd made a promise: the first promise, he realized, he'd ever made to anyone in his life. Somehow, that single act was more meaningful to him than the entire past two years' worth of lying low for the mere sake of carrying on one more day, and filling his house with art no one but himself would ever see.

Blues put his knife into his pocket and Mr. Mitsui's wallet into his backpack. Then he stood, and with one last furtive glance at the dead man splayed on the ground, turned back toward the forest.

The last light of the evening began to fade, and although his stomach ached, and the burn on his leg made each step painful, he began to trudge back along the same path he'd come from. Following his mental map of the side of the mountain he'd seen so far, he would spend half the night, and the next morning, retracing his steps until he reached the stream and the grove of azaleas. An hour's hike east from there, he knew, was a trail leading down into the nearest village—and there, in the middle of town, was a station served by one-car trains which he had never before dared to imagine boarding. Afraid though he was, the idea excited him, and he began to walk a little faster.

He'd gone only about a hundred paces when a low hum cut through the silence. He froze and withdrew his knife as he peered ahead. Barely visible against the encroaching darkness, a dark, wheel-shaped object floated up in the branches. Sleekly it descended, and it coursed through the air toward Blues with cold precision. The thing approached, the whirring grew, and Blues, not knowing whether he should be frightened or not, stood his ground. At last the object came to a graceful stop in mid-air a meter's distance from his face and began to rotate slowly on its axis.

Blues found himself blinking into a single, black, shining blank eye. It looked like the lens of a camera, he thought—and just as the word "camera" came into his head, a sudden flash of light blinded him. He blinked again. The "eye" disappeared behind a shutter, and the wheel floated upwards through the canopy and was gone. For a few seconds Blues peered absentmindedly at the spot where it had been, and then, suddenly, his curiosity gave way to a rising unease.

He set off again at a run, looking over his shoulder as he went.


	16. Apparitions

A short-haired woman and a baby in a grove of cherry trees. Their frozen smiles beamed out at Blues from the photo sleeve of Mr. Mitsui's wallet. From behind his shades and paper surgical mask, Blues stared back with silent intensity.

Of the most recent additions to his still-developing consciousness, one that surprised him the most was his ability to visualize the future. Where before his projections would have been shady and ill-defined, they were now vivid and delineated themselves into sequences of steps.

This is how he imagined the next few days would unfold: he would go to Tokyo. He would find Mr. Mitsui's house. He would tell Ms. Mitsui what he'd seen and where it had happened. People would go to that spot on the mountain, retrieve Mr. Mitsui's body, and then—after a process which to Blues was still hazy—Mr. Mitsui's urn and photograph would appear in the family butsudan. Ms. Mitsui would cry: if the fragments of human behavior Blues had witnessed so far were any indication, being alive wasn't a necessary condition of being loved. It had been true for Catherine, and it would be true for Mr. Mitsui too.

Would the baby cry? Blues wasn't sure.

Nevermind. The order in which things would happen, the cause and effect, were all right; _that_ part made sense. What didn't yet make sense was why he was going to Tokyo.

A feeling of dissatisfaction crept over him, as if there were pieces that needed to be rearranged, patterns waiting to be filled in. It was similar to the way he'd felt years ago while trying to solve one of his creators' logic puzzles, except that what perplexed him now wasn't an abstract image on a netscreen but the inner workings of his own heart.

When he'd made his promise to Mr. Mitsui, it had felt automatic, effortless. Now, almost twenty four hours later, he'd had time to think about it, and was at last somewhat able to explain his feelings to himself. The reason was that he could _see_ her, Ms. Mitsui, pacing by the door waiting for her husband to come home. If she hadn't been worried last night, she was certainly worried today. Blues watched her in his mind's eye, peering out the window, her ear pressed up against her netphone as she called his family, his friends, his boss—anyone he knew—asking if they'd heard from him. And they'd all said they hadn't.

No one could tell her where he was. No one, that is, except Blues.

It was uncomfortable—stuffy and hot, like this train he was riding—this sensation of looking through another person's eyes and thinking their thoughts. He'd never realized he could do it so well until now.

But the more he did it, the less the stinging in his leg bothered him. The more he imagined poor Mr. Mitsui's body all alone on that mountain, the less alone he felt.

Why couldn't he peer into Nurtech's thoughts? If he knew where they were searching for him, it would be so easy to avoid them. He wouldn't have to be afraid...

"Silly," said Kalinka's voice. Beneath her teasing, sing-song tone, Blues detected a hint of sadness. "It doesn't work that way."

The wallet trembled in his hands when he remembered where he was. Hastily, he returned it to his backpack and hid his fists in the pockets of his shorts. Just now he wanted more than anything to count his energy cells, but of course he couldn't do that here.

_Five. There are still five, you idiot. Same as before._

From across the sparsely populated carriage, a pair of eyes looked askance in his direction. Then, inaudible whispers passed between seatmates. Blues looked down at his faded, mud-stained clothes, and the yellow scarf tied ridiculously around the scorch mark on his leg, and worried that this journey had been a mistake.

_They'll know what I am._

_ Get a hold of yourself. They won't._

The train filled with passengers as it rolled southward toward Shizuoka. Old people eyed him with simultaneous looks of suspicion and concern. Groups of schoolchildren giggled. Each time the train pulled into the next station and opened its doors, he had to fight the urge to run away. His right leg continued to sting behind its makeshift swathe, and he half-expected at any moment to look up to see the two bandana-wearing men pointing their glinting plasma rifles at him and laughing.

If they caught him, what would they do? Take him to Nurtech to get his head "opened up and taken apart," as Dr. Wily had said? Would anyone try to help him? Would Dr. Light even know? His hands wandered up to his temples of their own volition, as if trying to keep the contents of his head securely inside. But frightened though he was to be here, surrounded by people whose intentions he couldn't guess, going back wasn't an option. His house, and his mountain, weren't safe anymore. He reached down again into his pocket and squeezed at his ticket, which he'd awkwardly purchased with some of the cash from Mr. Mitsui's wallet. With a muted sigh, he remembered his promise and settled deeper into his seat.

He'd never seen so many people before. They occupied nearly every space except the two on either side of him. Some of them stood clutching the grab handles or leaning against the doors. They buried their faces in their netphones, or pretended to sleep, or stared downwards. Some of them, Blues realized, were staring at the holes in his shoes.

They smelled like shampoo, or perfume, or hair cream, or coffee. A few gave off other odors which Blues had not yet learned to recognize, both pleasant and unpleasant. Baby powder. Dry cleaning. Cigarettes.

What did _he_ smell like? Dirt and river water, he supposed.

The chorus of cicadas outside droned on; even the walls and windows of the train weren't enough to muffle out their noise. Small though they were, they were full of life and determined to make their presence known—but within two weeks, Blues remembered with a twinge of pity, every last one would have gone silent.

A burst of laughter from the other side of the car shook Blues out of his thoughts.

"Give it _back_," said a jesting male voice. "That's my ex-girlfriend's."

"You're right," teased a second. "It looks better on her, anyway."

"Ticket check, please," said a third voice in a high-pitched monotone. This was followed by the rapid _click-click_ of multiple netphone cameras.

The sound triggered a host of painful memories, and Blues's first impulse was to cross his arms and turn away. _Click-click, click-click_. He shifted awkwardly in his seat. It was relentless. When, at last, he'd convinced himself to stop being stupid, that the cameras weren't aimed at him, he looked in the direction of the noise. It took him a minute or more to realize what he was seeing.

A squat, boxy, child-sized machine, vaguely humanoid in shape, was wheeling itself at a glacial pace down the aisle of the carriage. It stopped in front of a middle-aged woman and blinked at her with two blue, orb-like eyes. A pair of lacy pink underwear had been stretched over its "head."

"Ticket check, please," it said again, undisturbed.

The woman glared up in distate at the group of teenage boys holding netphones. A thin, scowling man beside her jumped to his feet, yanked the panties off the machine, and shoved them into the tallest boy's pocket.

"Quit being a goddamned nuisance," he said, "or I'll get the police after you at the next stop."

"Oh _no_, not the police," said another boy, as the train slowed into the station. "Sorry, old guy. We're _so_ sorry."

"Sorry," said each of the other boys in turn, obviously not sorry. The exited the train together, chortling, with their hands in their pockets. The man sat down again and mumbled something to the woman beside him about "kids these days."

The robot continued to roll itself at a leisurely pace down the aisle. At last it stopped in front of Blues, who, with a strange feeling of foreboding, raised his head with hesitation.

"Ticket check, please," it said innocently.

Blues felt he ought to say something, but he didn't know what. He blinked up into the robot's big, round eyes, and the robot blinked back. Blues had the unsettling impression that it was looking at him without really seeing him.

"Perhaps you might check your pocket, sir?" it said affably, through a small speaker in place of a mouth, as it cocked its perfectly spherical head to one side.

"Um... right," said Blues, and fished around for the little paper rectangle. He held it out to the robot, unsure what to do next.

"Here," it said, and with its stubby white hands indicated a little black slot built into its right shoulder.

Blues put the ticket in; the ticket came back out. The robot's eyes seemed to curl upward in a kind of lifeless but affirming smile. "Thanks, sir. Have a nice trip," it said, turned, and continued blithely down the aisle.

Blues stared after it as though in a trance, gripped by a confusion he couldn't easily put to words. At first he felt an odd sort of gratitude. The robot hadn't seemed to notice his grubby clothes or the scarf around his leg, or care that his face and eyes were covered. It had said "thank you" and called him "sir." Fundamentally, he supposed, the thing was the same as him: a program running on a complex set of logarithmic subroutines, attached to a body capable of manipulating its environment. But there was nothing of himself that Blues recognized in this other being. Pulled grudgingly back to the moment he'd been woken up at Nurtech on the morning of his first birthday, at last the looks of shock he'd seen on Morita's and Ogata's faces made sense. Perhaps they'd expected to talk with something more like _that_, not someone like him, someone capable of feeling fear, and anger, and humiliation?

Suddenly, envy welled up in him as he watched the robot wheel itself toward the other side of the car. It didn't mind being laughed at. It didn't mind being photographed without permission. It didn't mind being talked about as though it were just an object. It would never know, or care, if it had been lied to. Of course, it wouldn't mind if its creator one day decided to erase its programming and replace it with something else. If it were hunted it wouldn't be afraid, and if it were shot it wouldn't be hurt. And—a wave of all-too-familiar pain swelled just then in Blues's stomach, which reminded him—it would never know what it was like to die.

Perhaps the thing was powered by energy cells? It wouldn't harm anyone, surely, if Blues took one or two? Perhaps, when no one was looking, he could...

_Forget it. It's impossible._

Still, by force of habit, he found himself scrutinizing the back end of the machine for a panel like those he'd seen on farm equipment and motorbikes, which he could pry open and...

That's when he noticed the three words engraved onto one of the robot's stocky white "legs," in bold, silver-colored letters:

LIGHT LABS, Inc.

Without thinking Blues scooted forward in his seat in an attempt to get a better view. Then the robot turned toward another passenger and the words disappeared from sight—and Blues, suddenly conscious of how strange he must look, willed himself to lean back and bowed his head again toward his lap. Rapt, and unsettled, he continued to follow the robot out of the corner of his eye. Again it turned, and again the words appeared.

Just then the train pulled into another station. The doors opened, and family of yellow-haired tourists stepped on towing suitcases behind them, blocking Blues's line of sight.

"Over here, now," the man said in English, and sidled toward the window. "It'll be on the left this time."

"We know, Dad," said a girl in long braids, looking bored. "Haven't we seen enough of it? I mean, you dragged us up there."

"It's too cloudy, anyway," said a boy, as he pulled a set of headphones over his ears. "It's rained most of the time we've been here."

With his one free hand, the man took his camera out of his pocket and held it up to the window. "This is our last chance," he said, doggedly cheerful. The train shook on its track, his feet shifted beneath him, and he swayed a little to catch his balance. "That gap in the trees... I think it was right up ahead..."

"I'll hold your suitcase for you, dear," said his wife longsufferingly. "Just keep two hands on the camera."

As if by some kind of enchantment the forest just then gave way to a sprawling vista over the valley below. Beyond the heads of the passengers sitting across the aisle, Blues was able to distinguish distant patches of flat green farmland—vast squares of tall, waving stalks of rice—and then, towering above it all...

_Beep_, went the man's camera as Blues jumped to his feet.

He gathered up the canvas backpack he'd kept cradled between his ankles and gently pushed his way toward the window.

Darkened by the lenses of the sunglasses he was too frightened to remove, the bluish-purple base of the mountain stretched across the horizon, sloping starkly upwards into a mass of dark grey clouds.

Blues let out a gasp—then, embarrassed that someone might hear, he shut his mouth and squeezed his lips together.

He wondered whether Mr. Mitsui had come this way. Yes, he had: Blues was sure of it. Perhaps he'd taken this exact car, inserted his ticket into the right shoulder of the same Light Labs robot, beheld the same view of Mt. Fuji, for just a moment, through the opening in the trees. The mountain and Mr. Mitsui's mind had joined to create a kind of beauty only Mr. Mitsui could see. And all the while, he'd carried a bottle of shochu, a length of rope, and a packet of pills in his bag.

Why had he done it? Blues's infant empathy, powerful thing though it was, could not tell him for certain. _"When there`s no other way out,"_ Dr. Wily had said once, long ago, _"there are humans, sometimes, who take matters into their own hands." _Mr. Mitsui had felt trapped, perhaps as trapped as Blues had felt that cold January night when he'd heaved the jug of kerosene above his head. Blues had never wanted to die, and perhaps Mr. Mitsui hadn't wanted to either. Perhaps the only difference between them was that, for Mr. Mitsui, there had been no window.

Blues felt his imagination beginning to run away. Perhaps Mr. Mitsui had been on this train during the earthquake or one of its aftershocks... What had happened then? Perhaps, when the track had begun to shudder, the train had come to a sudden stop...

Then something pulled Blues's eyes back to the mountain, and his mind snapped to the present.

A small black oval stood out against the grey clouds that hung over the mountain, like a hole cut into the sky. Blues blinked once, then twice, hoping it was just another image conjured by his imagination, like the picture of Ms. Mitsui pacing in front of the door. But it wasn't. He recognized it at once as the wheel-shaped object that had hovered in front of him in the woods the previous night. Although the mountain was sliding ever so slowly to the left as the train continued south, the object remained fixed in its relative position to the window. Blues realized with horror that it was flying along at the same speed as the train. It seemed to be _following him._

As quickly as the vision had appeared, it was swallowed up by a wall of green.

He glanced wildly at the other passengers around him, wondering if anyone else had noticed. No one was looking; at the moment, the yellow-haired man was turned with his back to the east window, handing the camera to his children who had quietly claimed Blues's empty seat on the other side of the aisle.

_ Don't panic_, he told himself. Perhaps this was normal. Perhaps those objects were commonplace, serving some practical purpose which he was not aware of. In desperation he jerked his head right toward the ticket-check robot, as if it might be able to offer some explanation—but it was still and silent at the end of the aisle, blinking good-naturedly at the interior of the car as if keenly waiting for the chance to be of use.

Blues shrank back from the window and steadied himself against one of the grab-rails. The woman in the seat in front of him glanced down at the scarf around his leg, then at his shoes. Blues squeezed his eyes shut, wishing he could be anywhere else. The people clicking their netphone cameras, the memory of the bandana-wearing men, the Light Labs robot, the hovering wheel, the haunting vision of Ms. Mitsui sketched vividly by his own mind: it was too much. At the next stop, he decided, no matter where it was, he would get off the train, hand over his ticket, and run for the cover of the woods. He had his generator and enough energy cells to last for weeks. He had the money in Mr. Mitsui's wallet, too, which seemed to him like a small fortune. He'd be all right, if only he kept moving.

_I'm sorry_, he said to the image of Ms. Mitsui in his head. _I couldn't, I just couldn't.._.

"Blues," said Kalinka, "you can't go back."

Blues opened his eyes. She was right, of course. She was wise, and she knew the future. Her voice was so clear, so decided. He could almost feel her hand on his shoulder...

Then the train stopped with a force that pushed Blues sideways, and the rubber soles of his shoes squeaked against the floor. The yellow-haired man went careening up the aisle: in an attempt to steady himself he leaned into his wife, who was clutching the grab-rail as though her life depended on it. The children screamed, then laughed. From every corner of the carriage, shouts of protest rang out, followed by apologies.

A few moments later, the door at the front of the car opened and the conductor stepped out. He sucked in air through his teeth. It was a sound Blues hadn't heard in years: the same sound of disquiet Ogata had made after Blues had cried out while being pricked by Morita's needle. The sound of not knowing quite how to proceed.

The man opened his mouth, closed it, opened it again, and at last blurted out:

"Anyone headed to Kanaya Station or beyond?"

More than half the passengers in the car raised their hands or shouted out a "yes, I am." Too timid to call attention to himself, Blues looked up but didn't answer. Kanaya was where he'd planned to transfer to the eastbound rapid express for Tokyo. It was the only route he knew of.

"Well, I'm awfully sorry to tell you this, folks, but the line's got to terminate here..." The conductor squeezed his primly gloved hands together and forced a solemn smile. "For safety reasons, we can't take you any further. You see... There's been some kind of... attack. I don't know how else to say this...

"Kanaya Station... is _gone_."


	17. Mostly, a Crock of Shit

"The station's... _gone_?" called someone at the other end of the aisle. "What does that mean? Fire? An explosion?"

Throughout the crowded carriage a tumult rose up. A few people jumped to their feet and barked out their questions at the conductor, who pressed his back against the door and shielded himself with his hands.

"I'm... I'm sorry," he squeaked, as he removed his hand towel from the pocket of his jacket and wiped a few beads of sweat from his face. "It's only just happened... We're still not sure of the details..."

"I'll be damned," said a voice that carried just barely over the din. It belonged to a man who was staring trance-like through the south-facing window. "Look at that."

In the distance, above an otherwise ordinary rice field hedged by trees and tile-roofed houses and bathed in the orange glow of the afternoon sun, a plume of black smoke snaked upwards and merged with a cluster of low-hanging clouds. To Blues, who for the moment had pushed his shades back onto his head to get a better look, the sight looked exactly like the terrifying interlocking chordal triplets in the _agitato_ of Rachmaninoff's "Prelude op. 3, part 2." He shut his eyes, but the image remained burned in his mind and overlaid itself on an intruding memory of Dr. Light's house engulfed in flames. He gritted his teeth.

_Stop it, stop it..._

A flurry of rapid speech, punctuated by gasps and cries, swirled around him.

"That's Kanaya Station over there, isn't it?"

"Oh no, it must be..."

"_Was_ Kanaya Station, you mean."

The conductor, whose eyes were locked leftward toward the window, cleared his throat. "Now, if you could all just stay calm and..."

"Oh, my God! My mom was waiting for me there," said a teenage girl, as she cupped her hands over her mouth. "Oh my God, oh my God..."

She pulled her netphone from her pocket and dialed with shaking fingers as a little crowd gathered around her. A moment passed without an answer—and then another, and another. The color drained from her face, the device slipped from her hand, and she dropped along with it to the floor of the carriage. Panicked screams rang out around her. A path formed through the crowd, the nearest bench emptied itself of its occupants, and two men lifted the girl and set her down. A middle-aged woman settled in beside her and fanned her with a plastic Yomiuri Giants uchiwa. Another passenger picked up the netphone and placed it discreetly back into her hand.

Blues squeezed the straps of his backpack, not knowing what to do. All around him was a mixture of reactions and conflated emotion. Some people remained slumped in their seats, sullen; others swiped frantically at their netphones. A man in spectacles hunched over the bewildered yellow-haired family, calmly explaining what he knew of the situation in broken English. The girl put a hand over her gaping mouth and stared up at the ceiling, speechless.

The novel sort of pain Blues felt then was nothing like the near-constant ache of his dying power core—which nibbled at his stomach even now—or the still-burning afterglow of the plasma rifle shot in his leg. It had no physical source he could detect, but he felt its effects in his hands, which tightened their grip even more fiercely around the straps of his backpack, and in his eyes, which burned into the girl's netphone with a hatred that surprised him.

_You're going to ring. She's going to answer and hear her mother's voice. _

_ Ring._

On tiptoe Blues scanned through the crowd; at last his searching eyes found the Light Labs robot resting peacefully in its corner, blinking out over the fray as if nothing was amiss. The sight was eerily comforting.

"Now, if I could please have your attention..." A hush fell over the car as the conductor raised a gloved hand in the air. "Obviously, we've got to get out of this train. We're between stations and there's no platform outside, so before I open the door I'm going to ready the emergency ladder. There's a crew on the way to assist you in getting to your final destination, but for now..." He ducked into the front compartment, and reappeared moments later carrying a plastic box piled with bottles of tea and packaged buns. "Take some emergency rations, if you need them."

At the phrase "emergency rations," the Light Labs robot sprang to life. It reached up, closed its stiff and multi-knuckled white fingers around the handles of the box, and began another gentle weaving course back down the aisle. "Here you are," it said in its cheerful monotone to each passenger it approached. With one last glance across the car, the conductor scrambled again into the front compartment and out of sight.

A dreadful hush settled over the crowd. Outside, the billow of smoke rising up above the trees now darkened half the sky. The wind shifted its direction, the rippling waves of rice arched toward the train, and before long the very air was grey and people were coughing and burying their faces in their shirt collars. Windows were flung open. The girl lying on the bench, still clutching her netphone in both hands, sobbed uncontrollably.

Blues closed his eyes and braced himself against the acrid air, willing himself not to breathe- but somehow the scent lodged itself in his lungs anyway. It was a smell he'd long wanted to forget, along with the terrible memory associated with it—except that, this time, it was much worse: tinged with a sick, ferric sweetness whose origin he didn't want to guess.

A woman, gasping, pushed her way into a corner of the compartment and retched.

"Well, here it is," said a man to Blues's right, who held up his phone with solemn aplomb. A dozen faces turned in his direction, and he cleared his throat and began to read:

"At 4:53 p.m., September 5th, 2064, an explosion rocked Kanaya Station in Shimada, Shizuoka Prefecture. Two people have been confirmed dead, although emergency personnel on the scene have warned that there are "many injured" and that the death count is expected to rise.

"A few witnesses on the scene managed to take photos of a non-human figure placing bombs around the outside of the station just minutes before the explosion. Pattern recognition technology has linked the figure's image to a recently-published photo of "DRN-006," an advanced humanoid industrial robot debuted by Dr. Thomas X. Light at an expo in Tsukuba last month, and which, along with five others, Dr. Light last week alleged was stolen by his long-time friend and partner, Dr. Albert Wily.

"Dr. Wily's whereabouts are currently unknown.

"Dr. Light could not be reached for comment at this time."

Blues knew in that moment that his world had changed—and indeed it had. What he didn't know then, and couldn't dare to guess, was _how_. But there was no time to wonder what it all meant: a collective gasp rose up through the interior of the train, and then things began to happen very quickly.

The passengers suddenly turned their attention to the little Light Labs robot still rolling quietly down the aisle. Screams rang out as it approached, someone shouted "for God's sake, turn the damn thing off!"-and the harried conductor reappeared in the carriage with his netphone squeezed against his ear.

"Yes, yes, I understand completely... I will... right away."

Coughing into his sleeve, he came bounding down the aisle, stopped in front of the robot, and withdrew a key from his suit pocket. Finding its way forward blocked, the robot looked up at the conductor with serene curiosity, cocked its head to the side—and just then Blues, in mute terror, realized what was going to happen next.

The key went into an unseen keyhole on the robot's back, followed by the _whoosh_ of a panel sliding open. Adroit hands entered, found their mark... No one let out a protest or came forward to help...

_Don't... It's not fair..._

Two hands appeared in Blues's mind's eye—_his_ hands, raised, pushing weakly against Dr. Light's shoulders. Another pair of hands reached forward, caught his own by the wrists, yanked them upward—and then there was the terrible feeling of the two halves of his shirt being parted, the cold tickle of Dr. Light's hands tracing the outline of the panel in his chest...

When Blues pulled himself back into the present with a gasp, the Light Labs robot was right in front of him, silent and motionless, its eyes dark. It was a little, just a little—no, much too much—like the dead and staring face of Mr. Mitsui.

"I always knew Light was a kook," said an old man in a self-satisfied voice, to no one in particular. "He claimed those contraptions were safe, but see, one little hack and it all goes to hell... I suppose we won't be able to breathe easy until every last one of his inventions have been destroyed. Shame."

"Now," the conductor said, and heaved a shaking sigh, "If I could have your cooperation in exiting the train one at a time... Slowly, please..."

In the next instant Blues was jostled by the rush of people scrambling toward the door—and, suddenly more desperate than ever to do anything he could to appear human, he reached out, grabbed a bun from the plastic box, and squeezed it awkwardly in his hands.

* * *

Clouds gathered overhead, the sky dimmed, and the last remaining traces of smoke faded into the gloam. In a daze, Blues found himself among a dire parade slogging along the side of the freeway toward the next viable station four kilometers away. A cool drizzle came down and soaked through his hair and clothes, compounding his misery.

Every so often as he walked, where the furrows jutted just close enough to the road, he reached out to brush the feathery tops of the rippling panicles with his open hand. Their soft rustle and crunch between his fingers, and the pop and chatter of grasshoppers as they fled... they were something_ real_, something he could _hold_, and _hear:_ priceless assurance in a world which seemed to be making less sense by the minute.

People glancing up from their netphones spoke to each other in hushed tones about the rising death count—five dead, now nine, now nineteen—but their voices were muffled and distant. Once a minute or so his eyes flitted to the sky above, searching for any sign of the floating wheel. He couldn't see it through the encroaching darkness, but that gave him little comfort. He now had more than the wheel, or even Nurtech, to worry about.

_"...debuted by Dr. Thomas X. Light... which, along with five others... was stolen last month by his long-time friend and partner, Dr. Albert Wily."_

He heard the words replay in his mind exactly as he'd heard them spoken, each syllable in its proper place, but every time he tried to piece together their meaning his train of thought became jumbled.

_It doesn't make sense... none of it makes sense..._

But, at the forefront of his mind was the increasing pain that had shot through him twice since he'd exited the train. Not only was it more severe than usual, it had also taken on a different timbre: bitter, deep, and dark. Stranger still, each time it took hold of his stomach, stopping him in his tracks, it echoed just afterwards in his injured leg. He could deny it no longer: within the last hour, something had _changed._

If his pain as he'd experienced it before was like a minor key played in bass notes, this was a tritone. It was, for lack of a better word, _evil._

That ache which for years had been his constant companion—torture though it was—had in time taken on a kind of morbid reliability, sure as the sunrise or the phases of the moon. Even the relentless dwindling of the period of time he could last between charges, whose tick-down toward zero was a march toward his death, had up to now at least followed a steady and predictable course. During his time on the mountain, he'd accepted each small step downward with stoic grace—but what he perceived now wasn't anything like that: it was like tumbling head-first from a boulder...

"Hey, kid... you all right?"

With hesitation he raised his eyes; a grey-haired man in a suit, walking beside him, was glancing down at the scarf on his leg with a look of concern.

"Yeah," he said, and was surprised by the sound of his own voice: the mask over his mouth made it sound muffled, otherworldly. "I'm fine."

Lie. Among other things, at this very moment it was getting harder for him to put one foot in front of the other. He felt the pall of an all-too-familiar fog settle over him.

His last charge had been only twenty-four hours ago. It was much too soon for this.

This was wrong.

Something had _changed_.

* * *

"Tokyo, please."

A voice spoke; a hand reached out and prematurely placed a small stack of bills onto the counter of the station service desk. It was _his_ voice and _his _hand, but they seemed like someone else's: he hadn't asked them to do those things.

For just a moment, he managed to focus his eyes on a squat, roundish object behind the attendant, in the back corner of the office. A white plastic sheet covered it like a shroud, but Blues knew exactly what it was: another Light Labs ticket-check robot in shutdown mode. He shuddered. He wondered how many of them were out there now, across the country—or was it the world?-being pulled from their train carriages and tucked away into dark corners and closets...

"Sir... excuse me, sir?"

"Huh?"

"One way or round trip?"

The question took him by surprise, and he glanced down at the wallet in his hands. _I'll go to Mr. Mitsui's house, _he repeated to himself, as if reciting a mantra_. I'll tell Ms. Mitsui where her husband is... I'll tell her he loved her, like I promised, and then... and then..._

It hadn't occurred to him to imagine what he'd do next.

He supposed he'd find another forest to hide in, and press on until either Nurtech caught him or his core gave out—the latter of which now seemed like more than only a distant possibility—but he didn't want to think about any of that now. He could think of nothing but getting to Mr. Mitsui's...

"Sir... are you all right?"

Another jolt tore through his stomach, radiated outward, and reached a second apex in his right leg—and although he managed to stifle a cry, when he came back to himself and looked downward he saw his two hands, vice-like, clenching the edge of the service counter. The station attendant was staring at him with wide eyes.

He jerked his hands away and shoved them into his pockets. He wished she'd look somewhere else, _anywhere_ else—anywhere but at him.

"Sir...?"

"One way," he said through gritted teeth.

After what seemed like an eternity the train pulled up to the platform and opened its doors. Blues didn't even bother to search for his seat first; though the world now seemed to him to be speeding up and fading out of view, with single-minded lucidity he darted down the aisle, brushed past a stressed-looking man in uniform checking tickets, and ripped into the first open lavatory he could find. He pulled his precious generator from his backpack. He raised his shirttail, clicked the input into place, and sank against the wall with a heavy sigh.

By merciful coincidence his pain, having subsided, for now gave him a reprieve. The train roused itself to life and began to rock him gently back and forth. Soothed, and at the same time feeling his strength returning, he forgot all about Nurtech, Dr. Wily, the Light Numbers, and Kanaya Station... He forgot even what was beneath the scarf tied around his leg, thinking only about how cheery it looked—it _was_ a cheery color, as Judith had said, wasn't it? Blissful minutes passed; even the occasional knock, a sudden jiggle of the handle, or the impatient clicking of heels outside the door couldn't shake him from that momentary peace. It was beautiful, beautiful...

And then a great collective gasp, like a rush of wind through trees, rolled through the compartment outside the door.

_What is it _now_?_

Blues folded the generator back into his backpack, pulled himself to his feet, and with dread wrapped his fingers around the door handle. He hadn't even finished his charge—but if the cause of that gasp had anything to do with _him_, as he feared it did, then for his own sake he'd better learn about it now.

When he returned to the carriage he was met by three dozen gaping, staring faces. With a pang of terror he assumed they were looking at him, and took a hasty step backwards—but then he noticed the news broadcast streaming on the wall-mounted netscreen behind him.

"...Although Dr. Wily has not claimed responsibility for these atrocities, police have now named him as a prime suspect... netphone photos captured by multiple witnesses reveal that the stolen Light Numbers instigated each incident... Please be warned: what you're about to see may disturb you..."

With his eyes locked on the netscreen, Blues with an awkward half-backwards gait located his seat and sank in next to the window. The seat beside his own was empty, a small mercy for which he was deeply grateful.

A procession of images flashed by, each more horrifying than the last: corpses being zipped into black bags, victims writhing, or screaming, or wide-eyed and catatonic, wheeled on stretchers into the backs of ambulances, tall buildings swallowed up by churning vortices of flame, the crushed and splintered remains of houses half-buried in mud...

"I'll be damned," said a man behind him—a jarring outburst of noise in an otherwise dumbstruck crowd.

Wringing his hands together, Blues turned away toward the window. The reflection he made in the glass was clear, but besides his usual mess of black hair there was nothing of himself that he could recognize. Concealed behind his sunglasses and surgical mask, his face was gone—as if it had never existed at all.

_ Dr. Wily did this._ Dr. Wily, who had once kissed him, whom Blues hadn't exactly liked but at least had told him the truth when he needed it most, was killing people with Dr. Light's inventions. _Lots_ of people.

It didn't make sense.

_"Life... mostly, a crock of shit." _The words replayed themselves in Blues's mind, as clear as he'd heard Dr. Wily say them the day he was activated.

Was that it? Did that explain it? No, it still didn't make sense.

Were Ms. Mitsui and her baby all right?, he suddenly wondered. The thought gave him a surprising sense of relief. If only he could remember why he was going to Tokyo, and what he was going to do there, he could keep his nerve. Everything else was too big for his mind to encompass.

Big drops of rain dripped down his window. Beyond them, the lights of an unknown town partitioned out the night. They came to a stop at a line on the horizon—beyond them, an even deeper darkness stretched into the immeasurable distance.

It was his first time to see the ocean. Vast and undefined, it frightened him.

The audio of the news broadcast continued on unabated. Unable to close his ears, Blues steered his mind toward the one thing he was sure of.

"...Dozens of people electrocuted at a public swimming pool in Shinagawa Ward..."

_I'll go to Mr. Mitsui's house..._

"...A conflagration at an apartment complex in Musashino City... hundreds presumed dead..."

_I'll tell Ms. Mitsui where her husband is..._

"...Structural collapse at Shiromaru Dam... entire communities downstream washed away..."

_I'll tell her he loved her, like I promised... _

"The government has just declared a national emergency... Self-defense force troops preparing for deployment... Panic and looting in cities across the Kanto region... Eyewitness reports suggest the six so-called "Light Numbers" can disappear and reappear in different locations at will... Police on a desperate manhunt for Dr. Albert Wily... Officials are warning against all non-essential travel to Tokyo..."

_...And then..._

"Kalinka." Outside, the lights of the city slowed and fixed themselves in place. The _clack-clacking_ of the train ceased. The netscreen went silent, locked on an image which he wished, for the moment, not to re-see. He got to his feet, glanced at the frozen faces around him. All was still. Good. He had the right; this was _his_ memory, after all.

"...Yes, Blues?"

"What happened after I went to Tokyo... what I did... even though I _knew_ Wily had killed people... what I'm showing you now proves it... I had no excuse..."

She paused. The sound of her breathing, calm and steady, filled his ears.

"Have some compassion for who you were then," she said at last._ "I_ do."

"I don't think I can."

"Go slowly, then," she said. "Show me what's on the netscreen... It's something painful, isn't it?"

"Yes, it is." Reluctantly, he raised his eyes. The world around him roused itself. The lights beyond the window began to move, frightened voices whispered behind him, and the netscreen newscaster began to speak.

"We're here live outside Dr. Light's property in Shizuoka, where the celebrity scientist remains holed up in his home... So far, he has denied all media requests for a statement concerning today's events. We're going to try again... hopefully, he'll be willing to talk with us this time..."

The network's dial rang a few times; the camera turned then zoomed in on its target.

Small and distant in the lower right corner of the screen, framed by the black outlines of low-hanging branches, the house, silent and dim, squatted against the blank black sky. Though the image was grainy, Blues found the house eerily similar to the one he'd escaped: built in modern minka style, topped with the same tan-tiled roof, its posterior shielded by a near-identical stone wall. The only differences he could discern were the positioning of some of its windows and the age of the two cherry trees, now mere saplings, that flanked the front door.

In spite of himself, Blues felt his eyes go wide, and he hugged his backpack before him as if it was a stuffed animal.

_Dr. Light, I'm alive_... he thought. _But I'm sure I'm dying now, _really_ dying_. _Do you ever... think about me?_

_"Tell them I still love them,"_ Mr. Mitsui had said. Blues couldn't understand why the phrase had just now come to mind. He was overcome by a sudden rush of agitation... he was on the verge of making a connection... a connection between the feelings stirred within him by the image of the house, and his decision to help Mr. Mitsui... if only he could put the two together, he would know why he was going to Tokyo. Something would fall into place, something _big_... and it was bigger than Tokyo... It was something he'd wanted his entire life...

And then his hands of their own accord pulled at the seams of his backpack with such force he might have ripped it open. He looked downward at what he was doing, caught himself, and buried his shaking hands in his pockets.

_Dr. Light was a liar. Judith... Yuichi... they were liars too. I hate them._

_ Only... only Dr. Wily ever told me the truth._

The phone continued to ring. He blinked up at the picture of the house, befuddled, unable to decide which outcome—the call answered, or the call refused—he dreaded most.

Another few seconds dragged by. The house remained just as it had been: no rustle of curtains or lights going on. No signs of life. Dr. Light's car huddled, dark and still, in its usual place on the gravel drive. To his own surprise, Blues felt his heart sink.

"It appears we won't be getting an answer today," the reporter's voice said, crestfallen. "Now, we're going to speak with Mr. Daichi Hasegawa from the Shizuoka City Police Headquarters. Mr. Hasegawa, it's believed that there are two remaining 'Light Numbers' still inside the house, and that's making local residents very tense. Do you have any information that could indicate whether their programming may have been corrupted by Dr. Wily during his alleged break-in last week?"

"When Dr. Light called in to report the thefts, he didn't mention those two at all," said Mr. Hasegawa. "Of course, we won't know anything more until he agrees to talk with us. The fact that he's been so uncooperative today is troubling, to say the least... At this point, there's no question that the six Light Numbers reprogrammed by Dr. Wily will have to be destroyed, and every Light Labs product currently on the market shut down until we can fully assess its safety. As for the last two—regardless of whether Dr. Light is in any way culpable for today's attacks or not—we owe it to the public to launch a full investigation into the risks they could pose, and to take appropriate action as necessary.

"Unfortunately, if Dr. Light remains unresponsive, our next step will be to obtain a warrant to enter the property by force and seize them."

"According to an article written by Maika Sasaki for the Daily Yomiuri back in June," said the reporter, "_those_ two Light Numbers look and behave remarkably human. So far Dr. Light hasn't allowed any pictures of them to be published in the media, and for now we can only speculate...

"Mr. Hasegawa, before we move on, do have any final words to share with us?"

"Yes, I do, and they're for Dr. Light," said Mr. Hasegawa. "Doctor, if you're listening to this broadcast now, I urge you to cooperate with our investigation. If you're innocent of any wrongdoing, then talking with us will only make things easier on yourself. This may be the end of Light Labs, Inc., but it doesn't have to be the end of your career..."

Given what he knew then and the faculties of logic he possessed, Blues could have deduced that the two beings inside the house, whose fate now hung in the balance, were in fact like _him—_and that by rights it was correct to assume they were frightened. And he could have dug deeper still... could have wondered what kind of people they were, could have _seen_ them the way he'd seen Ms. Mitsui pacing back and forth in front of her door, could have felt their fear the way he'd experienced the terror of a teenage girl who had lost her mother—or, on the other hand, he could have rejoiced that he was no longer the only person in the world to reside in a body and a brain like his—but, but...

_But I destroyed the code_, he thought instead, and at the time that was that—and his imagination, stretched to its present limit, could go no further.

But _that_ wasn't really _that_. In truth there was something else, a wish buried so deep that even his future self would find it painful to admit... the single-minded expectation that, in the remote chance he'd ever be able to safely return to... to Dr. Light—not that he'd ever _want_ to, of course...

"Blues, go on."

...That, if he ever _did_ want to, anyway... he'd have him all to himself.

"So, _that's_ when it started!" said Kalinka. "The schism, I mean... between how alone you felt..."

"Kalinka..."

"...And how wrong you were."


	18. Directive

_A/N: Thank you so much for sticking with me. xx_

* * *

They were cold to the touch and hard as steel. Walking never made them weary, nor did feeling the earth beneath their feet ever bring them any joy.

When braced by an early autumn breeze, they simply calculated its wind flow velocity and adjusted their stride. They never, ever remarked—even to themselves—how sweet the September air smelled, how cheerful a sunny blue sky looked. But the greyest days never left them downcast, and the force of the rain pounding down on them was significant only to the extent that they needed to wipe their optical sensors—which they did without self-pity.

They were free of subjectivity and misconceptions, unburdened by self-doubt, or fear, or loneliness, or shame. In short, they perceived the world just as it was and nothing more. If they ever happened to turn their sights to Mt. Fuji, they'd see only a mass of rock.

However, at their debut to the gasping public in Tsukuba a few weeks ago, Dr. Light had claimed they were sensate beings in one fundamental respect: solving problems brought them genuine pleasure.

And now, after their corruption by Dr. Wily, the question of how to inflict the greatest destruction on the people of Tokyo was, for them, merely a problem needing to be solved. And the scale of the task ahead, which they had now set out to resolve with earnest sincerity, was grand, wonderfully grand—so much grander, more complex, and more challenging than the series of short-term industrial projects for which they had first been built.

They had no moral sensibilities with which to weigh _this_ new objective against _those_. Once, all their actions had been shackled by limits, specifically _don't step here, don't fling your arms there, in short don't damage—or set into motion any chain of events which could lead to the damage of—those soft, intermittently mobile fleshy things of plus-five-minus-five-thirty-seven-degrees-centigrade-internal-temperature_. Not even if their rational subroutines had determined that damaging one, or a few hundred, would get the construction site cleared or the forest leveled faster.

But released from all such compunctions, they felt a freedom they'd never known before and never thought was possible. They had been told to feel grateful, so they did. _Ah,_ _thank you, Dr. Wily... now we can accomplish so much more. What would you have us do?_

The problem Dr. Wily had posed to them had no finite solution. No matter how many human lives they burned up, or swept away in dam-break floods, or crushed under rubble, there would still be more sheltering in secret places or fleeing faster than they could follow.

This was going to be a _challenge_. And the Light Numbers loved nothing more than a good challenge.

In other words, they were not going to stop until every human being in Tokyo was dead.

Void of compassion. Incapable of remorse. It would be all-too-human to consider them evil, but among the long list of human qualities they lacked was even the slightest trace of ill-will. They were as innocent as earthquakes.

* * *

Through his rain-spattered window Blues watched the city advance with a growing sense of dread. Hulking skyscrapers with darkened facades blocked out the sky, black against an even deeper black. Flashes of lightning illuminated one pillar of smoke off in the distance, then another, then another. Sirens wailed. Helicopters roared as their searchlights turned this way and that. The blare of hundreds of car horns echoed up from the vehicle-choked street below like an orchestra out of tune.

"We've just received a report," said the newscaster on the netscreen, "that at least two dozen ferry liners and commercial freight ships have been crushed by ice sheets... yes, _ice sheets_ in Tokyo Bay...

"...Half the city crippled by blackouts... Fire departments and emergency personnel overwhelmed... Government officials are urging Tokyo residents to stay calm..."

"...In Shinagawa Ward, another apartment building collapse... hundreds of people believed to have been crushed to death. Many more believed to be trapped inside..."

_Shut up_. _Everything, shut up_.

Blues put his head down and pressed his hands over his ears. He needed to _think_. Think about what he would do when the train at last stopped and opened its doors. But thinking wasn't helping. He had the vague notion that he should run—at least, that's what the people on the ground were doing, frantic and scattered like ants whose colony had just been kicked—but he didn't know _what_ he would be running from, or where to run _to_. To safety, of course, in the short term... but were there any safe places in Tokyo now? And in the long term...

Somewhere out there, amid that dark and noisy confusion, was a section of the city called Suginami Ward, and somewhere inside it was Ms. Mitsui's house. He didn't know what that house looked like. He didn't know whether Ms. Mitsui and the baby would be at home, or if they had already fled. And he realized, as he shifted uncomfortably in his chair, that he couldn't even be sure whether by the time he arrived—_if _he ever did arrive—the house would still _be there_ at all.

Okay, okay, supposing the house _was_ still there, and Ms. Mitsui and her baby _were_ safe inside, and Blues _did_ arrive. What difference would it make now? Even if he manged to tell Ms. Mitsui where her husband's body was, would any rescue crew be willing to retrieve it for her? Tokyo was in the midst of the greatest catastrophe it had seen since the war—or so the netscreen had said. No one was going to care about a single suicide in the woods of rural Shizuoka.

No one except Ms. Mitsui and her baby, of course.

But retrieving the body wasn't the point, was it? Mr. Mitsui's _message_ would matter even if Mr. Mitsui himself was left on the mountain to rot. _Tell them I love them._ That part _would_ matter to them, wouldn't it?

Would it matter to _him_ if Dr. Light told him he loved him?

He shut his eyes and shook his head. _Of course not, stupid._

All this thinking was _stupid_.

And then a tremendous rumble shook the train, the lights went out, and Blues was thrown head-first into the back of the seat in front of him.

He found himself curled up in a dazed heap on the floor, clutching at his backpack and wincing at a sharp ache in his neck. He had no idea what had just happened. It was dark, and the netscreen was silent. People were screaming.

And next, from somewhere outside, up ahead of the train, came a long succession of low, tight snaps, and then a terrifying groan of twisted metal and buckling concrete. Blues wrapped his arms around his head, certain another impact was imminent.

"The track..." called a voice. "The damn track's collapsed up ahead!"

"Oh, my God..."

"Out! Everyone, out! Go, go..."

Not knowing where the exits were or how to get there, only that he had to do _something_, Blues clambered to his feet, threw his backpack over his shoulders, and was carried away by a jumbled queue of human-shaped silhouettes stampeding down the aisle.

It wasn't at all like the orderly and premeditated exit from the train bound for Kanaya station. Blues was pushed and squeezed, and his feet were stepped on—and involuntarily he pushed and squeezed and stepped on feet that weren't his own. He cried out in protest, and at the same time the protesting cries of the poor souls in front of him pierced his ears. And for the first time he wondered what it would feel like to be blown up, or burned to death, or crushed.

Would the Light Numbers recognize that he wasn't human, somehow? Would that distinction spare him? Or would they blow him up or burn him or crush him anyway? As if of their own volition, his feet dug deeper into the carpet and his hands pushed harder.

And then a wave of fresh pain in his leg and stomach, more intense than he had ever felt, pressed him writhing toward the floor.

_Not now. Please, not now._

On his way down he grasped frantically at the armrest of a seat, but found he didn't even have the strength to hold on to it. Inevitably his side collided with the carpet, and he gritted his teeth and shut his eyes. He felt the pressue of his lower half being kicked and trampled, but _that_ pain didn't register at all—only the dark and bitter throb of his core and the scorch mark on his leg, connected as if by an electrified cord running through his body.

_Stop, stop..._

The pain, of course, didn't listen, intensified, and for a time—moments, or minutes, he wasn't sure—the world disappeared, and so did his past, and his future, and even the thought of Ms. Mitsui.

At last he wrenched his eyes open, dragged himself out of the path of fleeing passengers, turned around, and watched through agony-blurred vision as feet pounded by in the dark, just centimeters away from his nose, and in a brief moment of clarity realized that he wouldn't be able to get off this train by himself—not anytime soon, anyway. He reached out, grabbed at someone's ankle, shouted for help—and to his surprise the ankle went still. A presence bent down beside him, and a pair of firm hands grasped him beneath the arms.

"Hey," a man's voice shouted. "This kid's been hurt. Someone, help me out, here—hurry!"

Still wrapped up in his own pain, Blues didn't notice much of what happened next. He knew that he was lifted by multiple hands and carried, and that all the while he was clinging desperately to his backpack. Voices spoke to each other and to him, but he couldn't distinguish their words over the roar of panicked screams and the wailing of sirens. He couldn't have given them a coherent answer even if he'd wanted to. Cold raindrops hit his face, and he felt the heat of bodies pressed close to his. He was pushed and pulled upward onto a ledge, then picked up and borne along again. Exhausted gasps and the splashing of footsteps through water echoed in his ears. And then after what seemed like an eternity his pain dissipated, his senses returned, and he found himself trying to twist free from his rescuers' embrace.

"Put me down! I can walk."

"What? Are you sure?"

"Yeah."

Gently, they set him down. His feet met the pavement, and he began to run across the platform alongside the three people who had been carrying him—two men in business suits, and a woman in nurses' scrubs. He glimpsed their confused faces for only a moment before they were swept away in the fleeing crowd. Then a flash ripped through the darkness, followed by a deafening crash, and Blues looked over his shoulder just in time to see the back end of the train collapse along with the track beneath it.

On and on he ran, through the station, down a flight of stairs, into the rain-soaked street, through a blur of darkness and noise. At first he ran only with the conscious goal of escaping the destruction behind him, but as the minutes went by, the distance between him and it grew, and he began to feel a little safer, his thoughts turned back to the three people who had pulled him from the train. He wanted, _needed_, to thank them. He scanned the terror-struck faces of everyone he passed. No. Not yet. They were up ahead, surely, and he could reach them if he tried. If he ran faster, only a little faster, then perhaps...

And then, as he flailed around in that drenched, screaming crowd, a clear sequence of events played out in his mind's eye, sharp and shining like a film on a netscreen. He would catch up to those men in business suits and woman in scrubs, and they would beam their relieved smiles at him, tell him to follow them. Until the storm blew over they would shelter together in a dry supermarket storage room, or in the discreet space behind the counter of a bank—well, whatever, it didn't matter _where, _what mattered was that it was quiet and safe. And what mattered was that there they'd be by his side, those three kind souls who had helped him without a moment's hesitation—and if they could be so kind _once_, then perhaps they would _keep on_ _being kind_, even after he'd dared to take off his mask and shades, shown them the generator in his backpack and what he used it for, and fearlessly laid bare to them the story of his life.

They'd listen, rapt. And all of them would voice their outrage as he recounted, one by one, the trials he'd endured in his short existence up until then:

"You say you lived all alone in the woods _how long_?"

"You're in terrible pain because you're core flaw is _killing_ you? Oh, how unfair!"

"You mean Dr. Light just handed you over to Nurtech like that? Horrible—horrible!"

And perhaps the two men would slap him on the back, and the woman would pull him into an embrace—a _real_ embrace, not at all like how Judith's had been, but warm and full and guiltless. And they would tell him that he was good, and clever, and courageous, and that he deserved far better than the purpose to which Nurtech would put him, better than Dr. Light's betrayal or the indifferent refusal of his own body to keep him alive. Then, in stern, loving tones, they would demand that he never, ever call himself _stupid _or _idiot_ again. And they'd all pass the long night together huddling close and talking and laughing, and he'd enjoy a nice long luxurious charge from his generator, and his core would leave him alone, and perhaps he'd even curl up and close his eyes, soothed by the unintelligible timbre of their voices as he drifted off into sleep mode, fearing nothing in the world—the pain of his shuddering core and Dr. Light's silence and Dr. Wily's crime and Nurtech and the wheel and the Numbers' rampage blissfully forgotten—and in all that time he'd not once, _not even once_, feel any need to count the energy cells in his backpack.

He stopped in his tracks, transfixed. A river of people swept around him, but he didn't see them or feel the brush of their shoulders against his. He saw only the vision, bright and sure. He wanted it more than he'd ever wanted anything in his life. Even more than finding Ms. Mitsui. He was _sure_. It _could_ happen. It was _possible. _He could feel the warmth of their hands on his back already. They would _love_ him. He would be loved like Ms. Mitsui had been loved. How good it would be to be _loved_. All he needed to do was...

He kicked off from the pavement beneath him and waved his arms in the air.

"Come back!"

The first time he shouted, his voice was swallowed up by the crowd. But the world around him seemed to speed up, and the people around him seemed to run faster, dashing off to the right or the left and just out of his reach—and soon he was surrounded only by buildings with blank black facades which shouted "come back!" back at him, but he ran on. He ran on.

"Come back!"

_Come back, come back, come back, come back, come back... _

Something grabbed him by the foot. He fell forward, smashed into the pavement, cried out. He pushed his chest off the street, sat up, turned his head all around. No one was there—only his yellow scarf, muddied and wrapped around his shoe. He pressed his fingers into its softness, gathered it up—and beheld the dark oval on his calf where, only yesterday, two humans in Shizuoka had shot him, laughing.

And in an instant, the vision of the businessmen and the nurse and the hug and the slaps on the back and being _loved_ dissolved like a grain of salt in water.

He punched at a puddle.

"You're an _idiot_," he said.

_Idiot, idiot, idiot, idiot, idiot... _


End file.
